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Bridget 

OR 


What’s In a Name? 


BY 

WILL W. WHALEN 

)i 


Mayhew Publishing Company, 

loo Ruggles Street, Boston. 





LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
TwoCooies Rweived 

JUN 25 1906 

^ Copyright Entry 

^2yj fQ C C 
^ ^LASS Ct. /Xc. No. 

COPY B. 


COPYRIGHTED, ipoi 
By WILL W. WHALEN 



oi^ 


To^the miners of the anthracite coal 

REGIONS OF PENNSYLVANIA, THIS LITTLE 
FIRSTLING OF MY PEN IS AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATED. 


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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I. The Breaker Engineer i 

II. The Twins 8 

III. Belle’s Husband 14 

IV. Mary and Martha 18 

V. An Awful Night 23 

VI. Drifting Asunder 28 

VII. What’s in a Name? 33 

VIII. Mysterious Louise 38 

IX. The Miner’s Wife 42 

X. Greek Meets Greek 51 

XI. Fred’s Nine Fridays 60 

XII. The Social Stepping-Stone 67 

XIII. An Unhappy Love 74 

XIV. Sister Isabella’s Love 77 

XV. Farewell TO THE CoNVENTrr 81 

XVI. The Ending of a Feud 90 

XVII. A Lucky Loss 94 


CHAPTER. PAGE. 

XVIII. A Wife’s Sacrifice. 98 

XIX. Mary Breen’s Life at Montgomery. . . . loi 

XX. At the Eleventh Hour 106 

XXL Judge Not 117 

XXII. The Lily and the Violet 122 

XXIII. At Death’s Door 127 

XXIV. A Coal Region Proposal.: 130 

XXV. Back to the Coal Regions.. - 132 




MONDAY ALWAYS PROVED A HARD DAY FOR BRIDGET. 




CHAPTER I. 


THE BREAKER ENGINEER. 

Hugh Nolan was gloomily wiping oil from his fingers, 
when Barney Green entered the breaker engine-house 
of Rhoads’ Colliery on Saturday morning. Nolan was the 
breaker engineer, Green was fireman in the boiler-house 
adjoining the colliery. Many visits in the day did Green 
pay Nolan, and never left him without having a joke or 
two; but to-day Nolan was dispirited, and Green came to 
the conclusion that there was “somethin’ in the wind.” 

“I say, Hugh, somehow you ain’t like yourself this morn- 
ing ; w'hat’s up ? Did old Cy say anything to you when he 
was here? I met him just outside the door as I came in, 
and he looked like he wanted to eat somebody.” 

Cyrus Royer was the foreman of Rhoads’ Colliery. 

“He said too much to me,” grumbled Nolan, “too much 
•entirely to a man who does his best; but pshaw, I oughtn’t 
to mind old Cy. He is good at heart, though he has a 
bad temper and a nasty tongue. I know he doesn’t mean 
the one-half of what he says. But, Barney, lately he is not 
at all fair with me.” 

“He used to think there was no one on earth like you 
till that miserable, sneakish nephew of his came here to oil 
the machinery. Do you know, Hugh, I’m inclined to 
think that that cream-faced rake’s been telling old Cy 
tales. It’s just something like Sam Royer ’d do.” 

Nolan laughed; Green was always jumping at wrong 
•conclusions. 

“Why, Barney, I think Sam’s one of my best friends. 
He is very fond of me.” 

“Fond of you, is he, the hypocrite! He makes you think 


2 


BRIDGET, 


so,' but I say, Hugh, that he’s after your job, and if you’re 
not careful he’ll get it. There’s a mighty big difference 
between oiling machin’ry and running breaker-engine,, 
and Sam Royer knows that.” 

^ Nolan laughed away the subject. His gloom had vanished. 

“Barney,” he said, “are you acquainted with that Bridget 
Purcel ? I tell you she’s a fine girl.” 

Green chuckled. “In love, are you? Well, I knew 
Hugh, that your turn’d come like all other men’s.” 

“Go on wdth you, Barney. Who said I was in love? 
If a man admires a girl and asks a question about her, 
it doesn’t follow that he loves her.” 

“That’s so, sonny,” replied the other with a sly leer at 
his friend’s clear-cut features. “Well, I kin say this of 
Bridget Purcel: she’s a lady every inch of her, and her 
heart, God bless her, is tender beyond one of her age. 
When my ole woman was sick last winter and mighty near 
handing in her checks, I had no money to pay anybody to 
take care of her. ^Well,’ says I to her, ‘Till, our doorstep 
won’t be run down be girls coming to give us a lift.’ Poor 
Till, she fetched up a swapper of a big sigh, when she 
looked round at her untidy house, for, even if I do say it 
meself, Hugh, Till when she’s well, keeps her house immac- 
ulate clean. What do you think! Bridget Purcel came 
every day that Till was sick, washed the young ones, tidied 
up the place, and read or talked to Till. But that wasn’t 
all, she did more. She brought delicate things fer Till; 
such things! why, they’d make a dying king eat! And 
when I’d come from work, there ’d be Bridget at the stove 
making tea or cooking, and looking like a picture you’d 
see in an advertisement. Such a girl! I tell you Mine 
Run’d be a decent place if it had more Bridgi^t Purcels.” 

Clang! Some one had pulled the bell-wire; a signal 
for stopping the machinery. 

Nolan gave his attention to the engine, and in a very 
brief time the machinery was still. Barney Green returned 
to the boiler-house. 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


3 


“Wonder what’s wrong now?” soliloquized Nolan, 
looking after the retreating form of Green. 

“Let her go! All right!” came a coarse voice to Nolan’s 
ears. 

Clang! Clang! a signal for starting the machinery. 

Nolan had scarcely laid his hand on the lever, and the 
machinery was just beginning to move, when he heard 
a chorus of excited shouts. 

“Whoa! Who— a! !” Clang! 

Nolan began to wonder why he had been given a signal 
to start. His wonderment was increased, when Cyrus 
Royer, the foreman, came into the engine-house, perspiring 
and sputtering with anger, and as red as a turkey-cock. 

“What do you mean, you fool!” he roared. “Trying 
to kill somebody? Why, I was in a screen when you 
started up the machin’ry! More be good luck I wasn’t 
made mince-meat of! \\diat’d you start the engine for?” 

“I got a signal to start.” 

“Got a signal to start! Listen to the man! Where’d 
you get a signal from ? Who’d give it to you, ’cept one of 
our men, and they didn’t? You’ve got signals in your 
ears, I guess.” 

“I received a signal to start,” replied Nolan, doggedly. 

The irritable old foreman’s eyes were spitting fire. “You 
thought that you did, your simpleton!” 

All Nolan’s pride and anger were aroused. He had 
suffered a good deal from Cyrus Royer, more than he would 
have suffered from any other foreman, for he knew that the 
old man was kind at heart, and Nolan was really attached 
to him. He took up his dinner-can and bottle. 

“I’m going home.” 

“We’ll try to live without you! ” replied the irate foreman. . 

Nolan with mingled feelings, drew the rope of his bottle 
through the handle of his can, and went down the scarred, 
creaky steps of the engine-house. 

“Well, there is no use in crying over spilt milk,” said he. 
“I’ll have to get another job, that’s all.” 


. 1 


4 


BRIDGET, 


Musing, he walked along the road, which was covered 
with coal-dirt and cinders from the fiery boiler-house. 
As he neared PurcePs old house, he heard a pleasing voice 
raised in song. Lifting his eyes, he saw Bridget Purcel in 
the garden. She had just finished digging a salad-bed, 
and now was collecting from the upturned earth such small 
stones as happened to be among it. 

Never before did Hugh Nolan so long to hav^e her speak 
a few words to him, if only to say good morning. But it 
looked very niuch as if Bridget would not even see him, so 
absorbed was she in her work and song. Then ev^ents 
took a turn. Bridget came to the fence, bearing in a large 
scoop the small stones and pieces of stick which she had 
gathered together. A wicked plan rushed into Nolan’s 
head. As the shower of tiny stones and sticks came over 
the fence, he managed to get in the way of the refuse, pre- 
tending he had not seen the danger. It was a wickedly 
heroic act, for the stones hurt, and the sticks stung, his 
hands and face, and some of the damp bits of earth got 
into one of his eyes. A shriek of horror from Bridget, as 
he had expected. He heard her light step on the board 
walk, then the gate opened, and she was beside him before 
she saw who her victim was. 

“Oh, sir, pardon — why, it’s you, Mr. Nolan! — oh, please 
pardon my carelessness! I never dreamed that any one 
would be so near the fence; it is unusual for any one to 
w'alk so close to the fence. Oh, pardon me!” 

She looked very pretty in her distress, with her flushed 
little face, her finger-nails in mourning, her hands weed- 
stained, her worn shoes bearing some of the soil on them. 
Nolan was exultant, though his e^e was giving him consider- 
able trouble because of the dirt in it. 

“Don’t let this little accident distress you. Miss Purcel. 
It’s my own fault; I shouldn’t have been out of my moor- 
ings.” 

She had taken from her pocket a small white handker- 
chief, with a hole worn in it. 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


5 

“Come,” she said pityingly, “let me get that dirt out of 
your eye.” 

He stooped, and she drew with the comer of her handker- 
chief the troublesome particles from the suffering optic. 

“You are very kind,” he said, when she had seen with 
satisfaction that all the bits of earth were gone from his 
eye, “and in return for your kindness, I have soiled your 
handkerchief.” 

She laughed a merry laugh that pleased him. “You 
are lenient with me, Mr. Nolan. If it had been any one 
else, I should have received a ten minutes’ lecture.” 

Nolan slept late on Monday morning. He was awakened 
by his mother calling him. He .yawned sleepily. 

“I’ll be down in a minute.” 

“Well, hurry up, Mr. Royer is waiting fer you.” 

“Mr. who?” — in surprise. 

“It’s me, Hugh,” called back a well-known raspy voice, 
the voice of the foreman. “I want to see you.” 

Nolan slipped into his trousers and, without lacing his 
shoes, went downstairs, the laces swish-a-swishing about 
his ankles. 

“Well, Cy, good morning. I didn’t expect to see you 
to-day, at least did not expect to have you as a caller.” 

“No, ner neither did I, but we never know what’s going 
to' turn up. I say, young fella, you’re all right. Gimme 
your hand.” 

Nolan, wondering, reached out his hand, and the old 
foreman wrung it. 

“And I’ve been wronging you a whole lot in my mind 
of late. That do-no-good nephew of mine, Sam^ was tuk 
to jail this morning, caught at last in some of his tricks; 
and he’s safe if he gets out in a year. I must say, though, 
he’s got a good trait er two left, for he told me before they 
tuk him off that he’d been giving out a deal of false stuff 
about yourself. I guess he got conscience-stricken. He 
wanted that breaker-engine, yesterday he got it, but he 
hasn’t kept it long. It was him that hollered and made 


6 


BRIDGET, 


you start the machinery. . . But now just ^put on your 

workin’ clothes and take back your engine. I left it in 
Barney Green’s hands till you come. And I want you to 
forget whatever I may a said lately to hurt your feelin’s. 
I was under false delusions; and besides, you know my 
chin-whacking so rough to you on Saturday was more 
from the head than the heart.” 

Nolan shook hands again with the old man, and then 
Royer went back to the colliery. Mrs. Nolan poured out 
coffee for her son, while he dried his face on the roller-towel. 

Nolan found Barney Green and the other fireman. Jack 
Hayes, indulging in a good-natured squabble in the engine- 
house. 

“Why the divil’don’t you go to church, Barney?” Jack 
was asking. 

“ Because I certainly don’t like the way the church is run.” 

“ Oh, I guess if things was right, you’d be Pope, is that it ?” 

“Bad luck to your impudence — you that would marry 
a Jew, you to talk to me. I’ll tell you why I don’t go to 
church; every sermon winds up wid a silver tail — the 
priest is always after money.” 

, Then both espied • Nolan and were prompt with con- 
gratulations. 

Leaving Hayes and Nolan together, Green trudged 
over to “coal up ” at the boiler-house. 

“Barney’s been telling me, Hugh, that you’re struck 
on Bridget Purcel,” said Hayes. “Ain’t it queer how 
tastes differ! — I’m gone on Belle. There’s the diff’rence 
in the world in them, though they are twins. Oh, didn’t 
you know that before?” ' 

“No, strange to say. Jack; but then the girls don’t look at 
all alike; Bridget tall, dark-haired, gracious, and as strong 
as a young lioness.” 

“Not bad at disgribing, old boy, but why don’t you 
disgribe Belle too? — Ah, I believe you don’t like her.” 

“Well, to tell you the truth. Jack, she isn’t much to my 
taste.” 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


7 


His friend seemed not at all hurt, for he replied, “A 
good many doesn’t like Belle, but that’s on account of the 
little airs she gives herself. Sure, that’s the only fault she 
has. But,” with animation, “she’s as pretty as Bridget and 
no one kin deny that.” 

“You are right in that. Jack; but her beauty neve'r 
appealed to me. Where the deuce did the girls get their 
looks from anyhow ? Their dad is as homely as a corncob, 
and their mother will never be shot for her beauty, and as 
for the Purcel boys — well, they wouldn’t be one, two, three 
with you and me.” 

“And now comes the question: What does the Purcel 
girls think of us, Hugh?” 

“I don’t know. I have often danced with Bridget, and 
she’s the girl who can trip it, I tell you.” 

“So kin Belle,” put in Jack. 

Hugh laughed. “You are pretty far gone. Jack. But 
I do not intend to marry till I can support a woman as she 
ought to be supported. For that reason, I have not acted 
the lover with Bridget Purcel.” 

“Bright boy!” was the reply. “While you’re making 
a home for Bridget, somebody’ll come along and pick her 
up, and she’ll help him to make a home. Be the time you 
get the cage finished, you won’t be able to ketch the bird. 
Now, I’m diff’rint from you; to-night I’m going to ask 
Belle to come under my wing, and let her and me make a 
nest together.” 

All that dayj Nolan’s thoughts were with Bridget Purcel. 
On his way to work that morning, he had seen her at the 
washtub and heard her singing. Her voice he could still 
hear above the screeching of the machinery, above the rum- 
bling of the cogs, rollers and screens ; above the noise of the 
coal, as it slid down the chutes; above the “chuff-chuff” 
of the steam, as it discharged from the pipe over the engine- 
house roof; above the rattling of the elevators, as they 
carried their buckets, burdened with cfal, to the screens 
above, and there, disgusted and weary as it were, cast the 
load into the greedy mouths of the screens. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE TWINS. 

Bridget Purcel was combing her sister Belle’s hair. 

“Bid, you would make a splendid maid for a fine lady; 
you are so delicate in your touch,” chirped Belle. “Would 
that I were that fine lady!” 

Belle cocked her head to one side like some pretty bird, 
and looked admiringly at herself in the bureau glass. 

“No indeed, Biddy, we can’t altogether find fault with 
the good Lord for not giving us money, since He gave us 
such faces, but I do wish He had thrown in money into the 
bargain. And our figures aren’t modeled after a dumpling 
either, like Katie Finley’s. — Gosh, I saw her yesterday with 
her beau; a sickly chap, with a languid moustache, and 
his nose ornamented with a beautiful large pimple. Do 
you know, that little snipe can’t bear us?” 

“Well, ain’t this dishgusting!” Mrs. Purcel appeared 
at the door. “Bridget, you’re a goose. After your hard day 
at the washtub, here you’re fixing up me lady’s hair, and 
herself wouldn’t wet her finger for you. I guess she’s off 
to a dance to-night, and yourself stiff and sore after that 
wash-board.” 

“Let Belle be, mam. I’m not tired; and if I feel like 
fixing her hair, why shouldn’t I ? She didn’t ask me to.” 

“Yes, that’s you every time, Bridget. You’d work your 
finger-nails to the bone for her, the lazy good-for-nothing.” 

“Mam!” Bridget’s rich dark eyes were shining with 
anger for she saw tears in her sister’s. “Please don’t go any 
further. Every word you say hurts me as much as it does 
Belle.” 

“Then I’ll shut me trap if it does.” 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


9 


‘You’re right, my own Biddy,” said her father’s voice. 
He had been in the next room, and the loud talking had 
reached his ears. “Bess, why do you say such things to 
Belle ? You wouldn’t do it to an outsider.” 

“Because she’s lazy, the flighty thing, and wants Bridget 
to wait on her hand, and foot, and I won’t stand it. To-day 
when Bridget was down over the steaming washtub, me 
lady Gay comes downstairs, and began to steam her com- 
plexion over the tea-kittle, but it didn’t take me a month of 
Sundays to fire her. Says I, ‘It’d suit you better to be 
steaming your face over the tubs as Bridget is doing.’ Now, 
this thing has got to stop; Bridget doing all the work, and 
Belle looking at her face all day, and trotting around like a 
jack wid books on top of her skull, to give her a nice walk. 
And it’s not two days since I come upon her lying down wid 
hot- water clothes laid on her eyes, to make them shine. 
As if the divil didn’t put plenty enough shine into them, 
for her to make the young boys loose their heads! I wonder 
the Lord don’t strike her and turn her into a pillar of salt. 
Thanks be to God and His holy saints, your wife never 
had no beauty to affect her brain, Mike Purcel.” 

“Pap, I won’t let Belle work. She is not so strong as I 
am, and she would work if I should allow her to do it. She 
has offered to help me, but I don’t need any help,” said 
Bridget, hazarding a falsehood. 

“That she did!” bitterly replied Mrs. Purcel. “Bridget, 
you ain’t no good at telling fibs.” 

The mother went downstairs, and Mr. Purcel laid his 
hand kindly on Belle’s bright streaming tresses. 

“Don’t mind her, little one,” said he soothingly. He 
always addressed Belle as if she were a very young child; 
he would never think of so addressing Bridget. “Your 
mother is fonder of you than she appears. She says twiced 
as much as she means; don’t mind her.” 

He left the sisters together. Belle for some time sat on 
the bed, with her head on Bridget’s bosom and sobbed 
silently; then she bemoaned he-^ lot. 


10 


BRIDGET, 


“Oh, God is unjust, Bridget.” 

“Belle, you little heathen, I’ll beat you if you say that. 
There is no unjustice in God; you are awfully irreverent, 
but I know you don’t mean what you say,” replied the more 
pious sister. 

“Yes, I do mean it. God has not been fair with me. 
I really believe mam hates me. When God gave her two 
little babies. He gave her love sufficient for only one, and 
that love you have, dear. Then He gave strength sufficient 
for only one woman, and you got the vast bulk of that. A 
chicken or cat has as much strength as I have. No wonder 
I am lazy. I am sure, Bridget, that if I had your glorious 
strength, I should work hard too. Why, love, if you had a 
prize-fighter for a husband, you could hold your end up 
with him.” 

“ But God gave you great beauty, you little sprig. Flowers 
don’t need much strength.” 

“Yes, but he gave you as much beauty as He did me — but 
there,” she threw her arms about Bridget’s neck, and the 
sisters’ blooming cheeks came together, “you always soften 
me with your flattery. I really think, Biddy, you can read 
me like a book.” 

“Love’s eyes are sharp. Belle.” 

“Are they? I suppose that is why Hugh Nolan keeps his 
eyes on you so much. Bid — trying to sharpen them, so as to 
find out if you care for him.” 

Belle laughed teasingly, as she resumed her seat before 
the glass. She was now herself again. Her nature was 
like some delicate musical instrument; a touch, and all its 
sensitive strings were quivering, then in an instant they 
were still again. 

“Bid,” and she looked at Bridget’s face in the glass, 
“are you really and truly blushing? Yes, you are, you 
rock of wisdom. So you love Hugh Nolan ?” 

“No, I don’t. Belle. I shall never love any man till he 
asks me to love him; and though Hugh Nolan is a perfect 
gentleman, and treats me kindly and considerately, he 
doesn’t act like a lover.” 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


II 


“ But I judge that you would love him if he were to ask 
you ? — Oh, Bid, I look like a dream with my hair piled up 
that way. My! won’t I seem ever so much taller! Such 
taste as you have! — But you would marry Hugh Nolan, 
wouldn’t you, if he were to tell you he loved you? — There, 
that big hairpin is on the floor at my feet.” 

“Yes, I should love him.” 

“Bid, you don’t mean it! Marry a miner, or a man who 
works around the mines!” 

“I should marry a blind man if I loved him, and then 
I should take in washing to support him.” 

“You romantic thing, you don’t mean that at all, I know 
you don’t.” 

“But I know I do,” said Bridget earnestly. 

“Well, you are not like your sister then, for I’ll marry 
money, and through necessity, take a man with it. If the 
money holds out, I shall try to tolerate the man.” 

Belle’s coiffure was now completed, and she was dressing. 
“But, Bid, you should think before taking such a step. 
You and I can make good catches; we are the prettiest, 
cleverest and best educated girls at Mine Run. We know 
as much as can be learned up here. — Get me that white 
cloud off the shelf, I can’t reach it.” 

After her parents and brothers had gone to bed, Bridget 
damped off the kitchen fire and set a lunch on the table. 
To keep the teapot warm, she put it on the front lids of 
the stove. 

“ She’ll be hungry after the dance, my dear Belle,” whis- 
pered Bridget, as she turned the light low and left the 
kitchen. 

Having finished her prayers, over which she nodded once 
or twice, for she was really tired, Bridget got into bed. She 
put the larger and better pillow on Belle’s side and took the 
little old hard one for herself, then slept as only a hard- 
working, healthy girl can sleep. 

“Bridget, you are like a rock!” Belle’s voice awoke her. 
She had returned from the dance and was just in bed. 


12 


BRIDGET, 


“Bridget, my hands are cold.*’ Bridget covered the soft, 
icy little hands with her own warm palms. “Ugh, how 
the wind is howling! One would think it was November 
instead of August. That galoot, Jack Hayes, kept me out 
there in the cold, talking stuff and nonsense to me. Why, 
Bridget, he actually asked me to marry him and attempted 
to kiss me. But let me tell you, he felt the weight of my 
fingers across his cheek. The thought of it — asked me to be 
his wife! — Ugh! his breath smelt of whiskey.” 

“ But a mouse may look at the moon, you know,” laughed 
Bridget, “and Jack Hayes is very handsome, despite his 
bad habits; so handsome, indeed, that Katie Finley might 
envy you.” 

“And he is mighty presumptuous. Bid, the insolent 
fellow.” She fell asleep, saying, “To think that he wanted 
to marry me, the jacky.” 

Next morning, Bridget arose at five as usual, to prepare 
breakfast for her father and brothers, and fill their dinner- 
cans and coffee bottles. She was ironing when Belle ap- 
peared at nine. Bridget pushed the irons to the back of 
the stove. 

“I have a bit of cocoa boiling for you. Belle, and I’ll 
make a few slices of toast.” 

“Faith, then you’ll not,” put in Mrs. Purcel, entering 
the kitchen from the porch, where she had been standing. 
“If she wants toast, let her get it for herself. Them that 
don’t work oughtn’t to be fed like queens. She will set 
down at feasts what she won’t never make.” 

“There you are again, mam,” said Bridget, angrily and 
sadly too; “you are forever finding fault; you make me so 
wretched.” 

“Well, I don’t mean to, child, but I find fault where there 
is plenty of fault to be found.” 

Then ensued a bitter quarrel between Belle and her 
mother. Bridget tried to interfere, but all to no purpose. 
Belle, in a rage, said she would leave home, and Mrs. Purcel 
retorted, “Good riddance to bad rubbage.” Belle ran 


Or WHAT'S IN A NAME? 


t3 

upstairs and locked herself in her bedroom, while Bridget 
went on with her ironing. She was taking great pains with 
a white skirt of Bell’s when her sister came to her. 

“Give me th^t skirt, Bridget,” she said curtly. She took 
it from the ironing board and returned upstairs. Shortly 
after in her street clothes, she came back with a valise in her 
hand. “I am going to the city, Bridget; I can’t stand this 
nagging any longer. Put a cloud on and come to the station 
with me.” 

A cry from Bridget and tears. “Oh Belle, think of pap 
and me and the boys, especially Larry, who is so fond of 
you.” 

“I said, Bridget, come to the station. If you won’t come, 
very well; let me go alone.” She walked to the door. 

“Only a minute. Belle, and I’ll go.” 

“Well, dry your eyes. Bid, or people will think there is a 
death in the family,” said Belle, with that cool way she had 
when she was much disturbed or excited. 

Poor Bridget obeyed. She reasoned with Belle, but she 
might better have kept silence. Her heart sank when she 
saw her sister buy a ticket for the city; but it sank lower 
still when she saw the train come steaming in. Belle 
kissed her, and boarded the train without a tear. But as 
the cars began slowly to move away, a tear-wet, flushed face 
appeared at an open window, and a choked voice tried to 
say good-bye. Belle was gone. 


CHAPTER III. 


BELLE’S HUSBAND. 

August waned, November came; the Christmas holly 
appeared and vanished from the store windows; February, 
bleak and cold, arrived. 

Belle was absent six months. She had written home 
only a few letters; but Bridget attributed this neglect, not 
to lack of affection, but to Belle’s distaste for letter- writing. 
The letters were always addressed to Bridget, but the first 
day of February brought a letter from Belle addressed to 
her father. Bridget’s fingers fairly itched to open the letter, 
and that day seemed very long until her father returned 
from his work. The letter coldly informed him that Belle 
was going to marry. Her husband-to-be was a man of no 
religion, but he would not interfere with her religious prac- 
tices. He was wealthy, she added pointedly. 

Bridget stole upstairs to her lonely bedroom. She felt 
that nothing but evil could come from this marriage. 
She tried to look into the seeds of time, to see what the 
harvest would be; but the future was mercifully hidden 
from her. 

Early in May, Belle, followed by her husband, swept into 
the kitchen where Bridget was mending her father’s smock- 
frock. The visit was wholly unexpected; and Bridget gave 
one glad cry, as she caught Belle in her arms. A swift 
glance at her sister’s husband told Bridget that she could 
never like him; a tall man with a cruel, refined face and 
cold eyes. Such eyes! Bridget never forgot them. Mrs. 
Purcel’s greeting of Belle was not very demonstrative, but 
Mr. Purcel’s embrace and kiss compensated for that. 

“Oh, Belle, you are beautiful!” exclaimed Bridget, when 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


15 

she and her sister were alone in her bedroom. “Your skin 
is like a baby’s.” 

“No wonder, pet, for I take care of it. You know there 
is a vast difference between Belle Purcel and Mrs. Robert 
Burroughs. They seem so far, far away. Bid, the old days 
when you and I were sharing this room and using butter 
on our faces when we had no cold cream.” 

That night every one at Mine Run was talking about 
Belle PurcePs husband. Jack Hayes got drunk and made 
a fool of himself. Hugh Nolan went to bed early and sulked. 
Each had his own reason. 

“Bridget is too good for a common miner,” said Hugh 
to his mother. “She will marry well like her sister. Her 
beauty and tact will win for her a better home than a 
miner can ever give her. God bless her!” 

He drew the bed clothes about his neck so tightly that they 
almost choked him. Perhaps that was why he groaned so, 
poor fellow. 

Bridget, as she told Belle that Jack Hayes was full, 
glanced sharply at her, but a millstone could not have shown 
less concern than Belle’s dimpled face did. She seemed to 
have forgotten all about him. 

Next day Bridget was making her bed, when loud talking 
came from the next room in which were Belle and her hus- 
band. Belle’s voice, clear and sweet and full of misery, 
cut Bridget’s tender heart. 

“Robert Burroughs, you will make me hate you. I 
believe I hate you now, jealous wretch that you are. Do 
you think that, because you pile your money on me in fine 
clothes and jewels, you can so lord it over me ? I sold you 
my body, not my soul.^’ 

“Belle, I can’t control myself; you madden me.” 

Then there were more rebukes from the young wife. 
Bridget clutched the old bureau for support; every word 
was a flake of fire to her sorrowing heart. 

“Brute!” she heard Belle screanrt. “Would you strike 
* me!” 


i6 


BRIDGET, 


There was a sound of a scuffle. Bridget’s great love 
burst forth in an impetuous, indignant stream. Belle had 
thrown open the door in a second and lay on the floor moan- 
ing; while her husband, trembling with rage and shame, 
stood over her. Bridget noticed his clenched fist. He 
might strike her sister again. He was a tall, broad, strong 
man, but Bridget was fearless. She said not a word, but, 
like a tigress, seized his arms and hurled him, before he 
knew it, far into the room. She took Belle tenderly in her 
arms and carried her to the next room, slamming the door 
between the apartments. Belle’s temple was bruised. 

“Bid, please let me lie here by myself.” 

Bridget with delicacy, said nothing, asked no explana- 
tion, but gently drew down the blinds, and left Belle alone. 

Bridget had to weep, yet not for the world would she let 
her mother see her tears. The back gate was open, and a 
ubiquitous goat had found its way into the garden. Bridget 
rushed at the animal, and pursued it into the laurel 
bushes, the tears rolling down her cheeks. Once sheltered 
by the thick brush, she fell down on the grass, weeping 
and sobbing, and tore it up by the roots in her grief. 

All the village girls came to the windows to peep enviously 
at Belle Purcel, as she and her tall husband and Bridget 
went to the railroad station on the morrow. Jack Hayes 
was at a saloon door when the trio passed; and after he had 
watched Belle out of sight, he ordered a glass of whiskey, 
“to keep him up,” he said; though what he meant, no 
one knew. 

“With all her fin’ry and grande’r,” said one of the girls, 
“she don’t look one bit better than poor Bid.” 

“Ah!” remarked Mrs. Nolan compassionately, when 
Bridget Purcel in tears had gone by her door, “that is a good 
girl, that Bridget. How she must love that sister of hers 
as jist went off on the train! See how she is crjdng, Hughie, 
the poor dear soul; though I don’t know but I never could 
like that Belle. A lucky man, Hughie, that will marry 
Bridget,” she added, glancing quickly at her son, who sat 


OR WtiAT’S IN A NAME? 


17 

near the open window, and whose eyes were following the 
girl’s graceful figure. 

“ Yes, a lucky and a blessed man, a thousand times blessed, 
but she will marry some one better than a miner. Why, 
mam, that girl could hold her own in any society.” 

“That she could, and no trouble at all to her,” returned 
his mother; “still I used to think and have hopes. But, 
Hughie, did she say anything like that to you, son ?” 

“Mam,” the big, broad fellow took the little woman in his 
arms, squeezed her and kissed her faded cheek, “you are 
like all women — too much for questioning.” 

No more letters from Belle. The Purcel family did not 
know even her whereabouts. Bridget sometimes thought 
that she was dead, and at times the awful picture of a mur- 
dered wife almost shattered even Bridget’s strong nerves. 
But she was not one to worry, else the terrible suspense 
would have killed her. 

Her father was promoted to hoisting-engineer, and his 
work lightened. That was a relief to Bridget. She little 
thought that a day would come when she would wish her 
dear father had never seen the engine-house. 


CHAPTER IV. 


MARY AND MARTHA. 

A FEW stray snowflakes were falling from the leaden 
December sky. The air was cold and keen, and shrieked 
about the little coal region town of Montgomery. The 
roads were dumb with snow, and the wind tossed the freez- 
ing whiteness about the low stoops and the green-curtained 
windows of the houses. The streets of the little place were 
well-nigh deserted; only, here and there a woman, with a 
shawl on her head, might be seen throwing out a keg of 
ashes; or a miner, with his dinner-can and bottle over his 
shoulder, trudging along, with clogs of snow clinging to his 
great nailed boots. None of the collieries was working ; all 
the place was snow-bound. A small number of hardy 
laborers had braved the biting blast and had gone to their 
daily employment, but were obliged to return. One red- 
faced little breaker-boy was seen to pass by, alternately hold- 
ing his ears with his ungloved hands, and putting his fingers 
under his arms to warm them. 

The snow had been swept from the little railroad station, 
but the wind was maliciously throwing it back again upon 
the platform. Despite the cold, a young man stood at a 
comer of the station, watching the door of the one waiting- 
room. He was young and rather good looking, though he 
had blue marks on his forehead — the insignia of the miner — 
and his hands were large, rough and scarred. His face was 
ruddy, his ears almost blue, he was “clothed with his 
breath,” yet he seemed oblivious of the cold. His eyes 
never for a moment left the door of the station. It was 
lo A. M., and a train was due; but most of the trains were 
late, being Retarded by the snowstorm. At length there was 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


19 


a whistling in the east; the wind brought the unmusical 
sound early to his ears. As the door of the station opened, 
and he heard the murmur of voices, the young miner drew 
back. Evidently, he wished to see without being seen. 

With soft, gliding steps, two women came upon the plat- 
form. They wore a religious garb, the habit of Mother 
McAuley. One of these Sisters of Mercy was young and 
attractive, the typical nun of fiction; the other, homely, 
with a kind, patient face that told of long years of toil and 
suffering. They were followed by a bent woman in an old- 
fashioned bonnet and frayed shawl, who leaned on the arm 
of a black-robed maiden. Immediately after these came a 
man in the October of life, with a slight pretty girl beside 
him. 

The eyes of the youth at the other end of the platform 
were fastened on the sombre-garbed maiden accompanying 
the faded woman. She was in the full bloom of youth — 
she did not look much over twenty — and was beautiful, 
with a calm, pure face. Her forehead was high and wreathed 
with dark curls, her mouth like a baby’s; but there was 
pain in the face now, pain in the contracted brows, in the 
droop of the lips. Her eyes were charged with tears, as the 
train came nearer. 

“Good-bye, mam,” she sobbed. 

The woman leaned on her daughter’s heaving bosom. 
“Good-bye, Mary darlin’, good-bye. I know you won’t 
forget us when you’re far away.” 

“Good-bye, Mattie love.” Mary was kissing her sister 
fondly. “Good-bye, pap.” 

The train was near a halt. 

The elder nun came swiftly to the weeping mother. 
“Good-bye, Mrs. Breen. I shall take good care of your 
child. She will be happy, I know, in the life she has chosen.” 

The train had stopped, and the nuns moved towards it. 
The young miner’s eye eagerly followed every movement of 
the beautiful, sobbing girl. She was on the steps of the train, 
at the door now, and she turned for a last look. She held 
tjie arm of one of the nuns ^s she ga?ed. 


56 


BRIDGET 


Mary Breen was about to say farewell to the world forever, 
farewell to its joys, its pleasures; yet the struggle was a 
hard one. She knew not whether she would ever again 
see those dear ones ; years make changes. ' She felt no 
regrets at leaving the sinful world; the false glitter of its 
promises did not deceive her; but the thin woman, the 
stalwart man, the slender, pretty girl — these were a chain 
that was hard to break. She had heard the still, small 
voice that called her to enter the convent, and she had 
listened to its pleading. 

The young miner clenched his fists; his breath seemed 
to hurt him, as he looked at the wan, sweet face and tremb- 
ling fingers. Another wave of her small white hand, and 
then the train bore her from sight. 

A woman, a beautiful woman, with all her life before her, 
had gone to join those noble, self-sacrificing souls that 
labor for their neighbor, that forget themselves, that nurse 
the body in the hope of drawing the soul nearer to God. 
Mary Breen was gone; but what cared the world? Saints, 
quietly gliding along the path of sanctification, make no 
noise; we do not notice them; the sinners, tearing their way 
to perdition, attract our attention. 

Mrs. Breen leaned on her husband when the train had 
disappeared. Poor woman, she was quivering like an 
aspen. He, for the first time, noticed the young miner, 
who was now coming towards them. 

“Mr. Breen,” and he wrung the old man’s homy hand, 
“you have given up a jewel.” 

“God knows we have,” replied the mother, “but Brian, 
there’s nothing too good for Him. Me darling’s gone, but, 
i I had me way, she’d not be back in the wicked old world. 
She can pray for us all where she’s gone to. It’s an honor 
to me to’ve raised such a child. When my eyes ’re closed, 
and me hands ’re still. I’ll have at least one to remember 
me before the altar. But, oh, it’s hard, it’s hard to give up 
my Mary! God be with her! If I had me way, she’d be 
just where she’s gone.” 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


21 


Brian Munley sighed. If he had had his way, Mary 
Breen would never — but it was too late now; and beside 
she did not love him. She was a woman to be loved, not 
to love. 

The sharp eyes of Martha Breen, the younger sister, had 
seen Brian Munley the first moment she came through the 
station doorway. She had surmised that he would be there ; 
she knew how he loved her sister. She had noticed with 
sorrow the love in his eyes as lie gazed at Mary, for Martha 
had given him her young heart; but she was too noble to be 
jealous. Ah, jealousy was not to be thought of. Had not 
her sister fled from the world and its snares ? Perhaps now, 
that Mary had gone, he might love her; perhaps when he 
realized that his love for Mary was vain, he might turn to 
her for consolation. She thanked God that he loved her 
sister, and not some one else whose love he might win. 

“It’s too cold for you here,” said Breen considerately 
to his wife; “you must come home.” 

He drew her shawl more tightly about her, for it was 
beginning to slip from her shoulders. She had forgotten 
the cold; her mother’s love was crying out for the one that 
was gone. 

“You will come with us, Brian?” continued Breen. 

Martha’s heart beat quickly, and a flush that the wind 
could not claim, came into her cheeks. Brian Munley 
would walk with her. He gave her his arm, as they went 
down the slippery steps. She was too happy to talk. Even 
the howling wind was music in her ears. He spoke first: 

“You never took such a notion, I guess, Mattie, as going 
to the convent?” 

Tears almost came to her eyes; his words were more 
piercing than the cold. What stupids men are! 

“No-o, Brian,” she faltered; “the convent’s not for me; 
I wouldn’t be happy there. I never was like our Mary; 
she was a saint from a baby.” 

He wished that Mary had been less saintly; if she had 
not been so much so, she might have returned his love, 


22 


BRIDGET, 


“No one ’uld ever think that me and Mary were sisters,” 
continued Martha; “we were so different. She was bright 
at school, I wasn’t; she loved books, I hated them. She 
was as happy as a lark when she was made school-teacher 
last term, but I couldn’t have the patience to study like her; 
always working at algebra or something in that line. But 
I don’t think she was for this world, Brian.” 

Martha stopped, looked up into his face and almost 
cried with vexation; he was not listening to her. His 
brows were knit; a wistful look was in his eyes, and Martha 
knew where his thoughts were, but she could not be jealous. 


CHAPTER V. 


AN AWFUL NIGHT 

The clock had just struck ten. Bridget Purcel, as she 
sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes, heard the ten beats. 
There was a noise downstairs as of some one stirring, and 
the loud tones of her mother’s voice came to her ears. She 
was now fully awake, and she became conscious of the fact 
that the colliery whistle was screaming at full blast. 

Bridget was not always in bed at ten o’clock; but it was 
Monday, and Monday always proved a hard day for Bridget. 
She was up at five on that morning to start in washing, 
and, having no washing machine, was obliged to use the 
old-fashioned wash-board. As the woman next door said, 
no one at Mine Run used more “elbow grease” in a week 
than Bridget Purcel. 

But Bridget, tired as she had been on going to bed an 
hour before, now bright enough, jumped out of bed and 
slipped on her wrapper. She found her mother very much 
excited, but that was nothing new, for trifles excited Mrs. 
Purcel. 

“ Biddy, God help us, the mines is on fire. Don’t you hear 
the whistle?” One would have had to be very deaf not 
to hear it, for the whistle was shrieking as if in distress. 

“Come, Biddy, we must go to the head of the slope.” 

“Oh, mam, do stay at home. I’ll run down to the slope 
and will tell you all the news.” 

She knew what her mother was — a weak, nervous woman, 
and Bridget was fearful; for her brother was on the night 
shift and might be in the fire. Her father was night engi- 
neer at the Mine Run Colliery. 

“No, Biddy, how could I wait till yo’d come back? I 
must go with yo’.” 


24 


BRIDGET, 


Throwing a cloud over her own head and wrapping a 
shawl about her mother’s, Bridget hurried from the house 
holding her mother’s hand. The night was dark, there 
being no moon. The sky near the colliery was heavy with 
a black cloud, which Bridget saw was smoke from the burn- 
ing mine. Great God, it was the slope in which her brother 
Larry worked! 

“Hurry, mam!” cried the frightened girl; but the in- 
junction was not needed, for anxiety had lent wings to Mrs. 
Purcel’s feet. Along the dark road, muddy and sloppy 
from the rain, stumbling, breathless, their hearts beating 
wildly, the mother and daughter ran. They reached the 
head of the slope where a motley crowd had gathered — 
women bare-headed, with unbuttoned shoes and dresses 
open at the neck; a few half-grown girls, with clouds or 
shawls on their heads; one or two children with sleepy, 
round eyes; a large number of men, young, middle-aged 
and old. 

“Larry! O, Mother of God, is my Larry safe?” cried 
Mrs. Purcel, wdth a mother’s anxiety. 

“Yes,” whispered a woman, consolingly. 

The smoke was now pouring in a denser cloud from the 
mouth of the slope, and the heat was increasing. The 
hoisting-engine was in motion, and a car was on its way 
to the surface. Six men were in the car, all overcome 
with smoke. Mrs. Purcel recognized among the uncon- 
scious men, who were a rescuing crew, the features of her 
oldest son, Christy, who was married and was foreman 
of the mine. She had not thought of his being in danger; 
she knew that it was unusual for him to be around the mines 
at night. She helped to recover him. 

“Send down the wagon again!” shouted one of the men 
to the engineer, Mrs. Purcel’s husband. “All the men 
ain’t up. Good God, our Martin’s down there yet!” 

The engineer obeyed, and the car had just begun its 
descent when a sheet of flame shot from the mouth of the 
slope into the air. A shriek of despair and horror went 
up from the throats of all present. 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


25 

“God help any poor soul what’s in that mines,” said a 
woman who stood by. 

The car had not reached the bottom of the slope when 
two raps on the bell-wire came to the engine-house. Clang ! 
Clang! a signal for hoisting. Everybody heard the two 
raps, for they rang out distinct and clear. The engineer 
was hoisting the car to the surface, when the tar-covered 

ire rope caught fire, and the flames were spreading to the 
engine-house. 

“Stop the engine for God’s sake!” called a miner, “er 
the engine-house’ll take fire, and spread to the supply- 
house, and we’ll all be blown t’ smithereens!” 

The supply-house, a small building adjoining the engine- 
house, was filled with kegs of powder, dynamite and dualin 
caps. 

The engineer, Mike Purcel, brought the engine to a 
halt at once, and came with a very white face and trembling 
hands to the door of the engine-house. He feared that his 
son Larry was on the ill-fated car, and when he saw the 
flames shooting fifty feet into the air, he knew that any one 
on the car, in the midst of such a fire, was dead. In his 
excitement he forgot that the two raps came before the car 
had reached the bottom of the slope, where the men were 
thought to be; so how could they be on the car when it 
had not reached them? And why should they wish to 
“rap” it up, if it had not come sufficiently near for them 
to board it? 

“Start up the engine, yo’ d — n coward!” cried Mat 
Holahan, seizing Purcel by the shoulder. “Like as not 
our Martin’s on that wagon!” 

“But the supply-house. Mat? And if any one’s on that 
wagon, they’re dead now; who could live a second in such 
flame?” 

“To the divil with the supply-house! H’ist that wagon, 
I say, if yo’re wise.” Holahan was drunk; he had just 
left a tavern when the alarm of fire was given; and his 
red eyes were bad to look at. “H’ist it! h’ist it! don’t 
Stand there like a fool; our Martin’s on it,” 


26 


BRIDGET, 


“So is my Larry; but they’re dead; I dare not h’ist. 
The engine-house’d take fire, the supply-house ’d blow up, 
and the whole of us with it.” 

“Yo’ won’t h’ist it?” 

“No, only a lunatic would.” 

“Then you’ll meet the same death as my brother, yo’ 
white-livered — ! 

No one noticed the two men, so great was the confusion, 
till a girlish scream rang out. Then all eyes were turned 
to the very edge of the mine’s mouth, where two men strug- 
gled for the mastery, and a lithe girl, with unbound hair, 
clung to them, crying out for assistance. The younger 
of the men brutally struck the girl, and she fell across the 
hot car-tracks. It was done in an instant, and before 
any one had time to interfere. 

There was a shriek from the women, a groan of horror 
from the men. They saw the clenched figure of Mat 
Holahan and Mike Purcel stand for a second on the verge 
of the fiery abyss, then topple over and go down into the 
awful depths. A number of women fainted, among them 
Mrs. Purcel, who had been kneeling by the side of her now 
conscious son, Christy. Bridget Purcel, with a cry which 
went to all hearts, staggered to her feet and ran to the edge 
of the slope, so close to the flame that it singed her long, 
dark hair. 

“O pap, pap!” It was a moan, a sob, a cry of hopeless 
agony. “Gone to such a death! O God, be merciful 
to those poor souls!” 

She felt a strong, firm arm about her, and her brother 
Christy’s voice said: 

“Bridget, be brave; it’s hard, but hold up under it for 
awhile; look to mam, I have other things to do, and you 
are all she has to attend her.” Then there was a sob from 
the strong man. “O pap, O Larry!” 

‘ Bridget, with blood trickling from a wound in her fore- 
head, caused by Mat Holahan ’s fist, went to where her 
mother lay in the arms of a neighboring woman. Bridget 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


27 

knelt down in the mud and took her mother’s unconscious 
head in her lap. 

‘*0 mam, God give you strength,” she moaned, “strength 
to bear up.” Tears fell on Mrs. Purcel’s wrinkled face. 
“O pap, pap, and Larry!” 

And there in the mud, with her hands on her mother’s 
brow, with her eyes turned up to the pitiless sky; there 
where a dense cloud of smoke hung between earth and 
heaven, as if God were angry; there where the red flames 
roared and shot high into the air, there where women were 
weeping and praying, and men were groaning; there Bridget 
sent a prayer for strength for herself and her mother to the 
Seat of Mercy, a prayer for the souls that had been hurried 
into eternity with scarcely a minute’s warning. God 
seemed very near to Bridget in that hour when to others 
He never seemed farther away. But, ah, how often is He 
near us, and our hearts give us no warning of His proximity! 

Two months had gone by. The Mine Run fire had 
been extinguished. The bodies of the unfortunate victims 
were recovered. All had been suffocated, save Mike 
Purcel and Mat Holahan. The recovery of the bodies 
gave but little consolation to the sore hearts of the mourning 
wives, mothers and sisters; for the decomposed corpses 
could not be looked upon, and of Mike Purcel and Mat 
Holahan only a few charred bones remained. The car 
which stood in the fiery slope, and on which Larry Purcel 
and the other men were supposed to have died, was found 
to be empty. All the wood had burned away from the car, 
but its sheet-iron bottom and sides remained. The rapping, 
of the bell-wire was caused by timber falling upon it. 

Mrs. Purcel was a broken woman ; life for her without her 
husband was almost a drag. But Bridget hid her own 
grief, and spared no pains to make her mother happy. 


CHAPTER VI. 


DRIFTING ASUNDER. 

That winter passed away. The hills were green again; 
the trees were beginning to push forth young buds; spring 
had come. The buds became leaves and blossoms. The 
trees bent beneath the weight of their fruits. The harvest 
time arrived. The trees were again bare of fruits; soon 
they lost their leaves, and stood stark and unprotected 
from the biting winds. Anon snow fell and in mercy hid 
the frost-seared grass from sight. 

It was a bleak, wintery afternoon. The train from the 
city had dragged its cars through the snow into the Mine 
Run station. A woman alighted heavily veiled. She was 
richly dressed, and everybody was curious to see her face, 
but she noticed no one. With indolent grace, she wended 
her way through the snow towards the colliery. Across 
the bridge she went, her rustling skirts sweeping the dirty 
snow; past the old white-washed pay-office through whose 
window the long-necked clerk was staring out; gathered 
up her skirts gracefully and leaped lightly across a ditch; 
glided by the door of the old blacksmith shop; trailed 
along the car-road, by the sides of mud-grimed mine 
cars, filled with coal and rock and worn-out timber. On 
majestically went that sylph-like figure till it reached the 
old drift. It was just four o’clock. The men used to come 
home about this time. 

She sat upon a smooth piece of timber and hummed a 
gay air. Man after man came out of the drift, and she 
studied every face intently. At last she grew weary; a 
half-hour had passed, yet the one whom she sought had 
not come. The night-shift men were arriving. Four or 


ok WHAT’S IN A NAMk? 


6ve stood at a distance, wondering who the veiled stranger 
with the bright hair could be. Amongst them there was 
one very handsome and gallant-looking, and he stared more 
than the rest at the woman. She arose at length, and 
putting up her veil, approached and addressed the men. 

“Has Mike Purcel gone home?” she asked. 

The handsome youth tried to prevent an over-eager 
companion from speaking^ but was too late. 

“Why, lady, that man’s dead a year!” 

An agonizing shriek pierced the cold air, a shriek that 
rang loud and clear above the lumbering noise which 
a trip of cars made on its way to the slope. A little figure, 
with a death-like face, swayed and would have fallen, had 
not the handsome young miner caught her in his arms. 

“Whew, Jack Hayes is in luck, to have sich a load as 
her to hold,” whispered a stripling to an older miner. 

“Shut up, you clown,” growled the old miner, his hoarse 
voice hoarser than usual and a tear in his eye. “That’s 
Mike Purcel ’s daughter.” 

Jack Hayes had just donned a suit of clean working 
clothes, yet as he held Belle against his breast, her head to 
his shoulder, he seemed to fear that he would soil her rich 
garments. 

“I’ll take her home, boys,” he said, his eyes bright as 
if with tears; “it ain’t far from here.” 

He hurried along swiftly with his precious burden; his 
eyes glued to the bewitching face, so that he stumbled and 
almost fell several times. 

“She’d never know,” he thought, as he passed by the 
oil-house, “and I don’t care who sees.” 

Like a flash, he bent down his head and pressed a kiss 
on her ruby lips. Then he took her in at Parcel’s gate 
and laid her in Bridget’s arms. 

She was in the old bed-room again, moaning and crying 
and sobbing and praying, poor Belle. Bridget soothed her 
with kind, gentle words and caressed her cold hands. 

“He is in heaven, Belle dear; he was always a saint. 


36 BRIDGET, 

He is better off; his lot in this world was hard. He has 
gone from the dark, awful mines to God’s bright throne.” 

“But how came he to be running the hoisting-engine, 
Bridget? — he used to be a pumps’ man, and worked in the 
old drift.” 

“He was promoted, dear. I did not know your address, 
else I could have written and told you all the news; even 
the news of his sad death. Larry — oh, don’t take it so 
hard, dear — was speaking of you on the afternoon of that 
fatal day, before he went to work.” 

% “I deserve all this,” moaned Belle; “perhaps in my 
prosperity, I neglected my dear ones.” 

Next day they went to the grave of their father and 
brother. It was almost hidden in a snowdrift, only the top 
of the headstone being visible. 

“ Just a minute. Belle. I’ll get a shovel, from the tool- 
house and clean the grave.” 

When Bridget returned, she found Belle kneeling half 
buried in the snow, with her forehead leaning on the cold 
tombstone. 

“I brought this for him,” said Belle, drawing a large 
watch from her bosom; “I knew dear pap always wanted 
a gold watch.” 

“Bridget,” said Belle, when they were sitting before 
a blazing fire in the kitchen, “there is no danger of our 
being overheard? Mam is out?” 

“Yes, down at Mrs. Nolan’s. No, there is no danger, 
and to prevent surprise, I will turn the key in the door.” 

“O Bridget, if you only knew how fcr a year I longed to 
see you and pap! My husband I could never understand. 
At times he was very kind, too kind to me, then he would be 
unreasonably jealous and even strike me. But he loves 
me, loves me too well. He is in prison for his love of me. 
But I must not anticipate. 

“Sometimes it seemed that he could not restrain himself, 
and I suffered, but he was always sorry afterwards. 1 
married him only for his wealth, I even disliked him before 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


31 


I became his wife, and I grew to hate him — or, at least, 
near to hating him. Then came our little one. O Bridget, 
let me lay my poor giddy head on your bosom and weep!’’ 

Bridget consoled her and she went on: 

‘‘My darling was so little and so beautiful; little like me, 
beautiful like you, dear, with dark hair and dark eyes. My 
husband almost raved about her. Perhaps she would have 
drawn me to her father, but her, — O Biddy, God took her 
away from me. He took her away, and I stormed and cried 
out against Him. Don’t shudder, darling; I was almost 
insane at the time.” 

“I quarreled with my husband. I told him that I 
loathed him, that I should never love him. He turned 
ashy-pale, and fell on a sofa. O God, forgive me, I can 
even now see him pressing his hands to his poor head. He 
arose, and there was murder in his face. 

“ ‘God! and what I have done for you! I have swindled 
and forged to put jewels on your throat, to robe you like a 
queen. I am at this moment in the clutches of the law. 
I came to-night to ask consolation from my wife, and she 
tells me that I have nothing but her hate. Only one thing 
saves you from death and prevents me from going to prison 
for murder as well as forgery — you love no other man.’ 

“He was taken to prison next day, and I went to live 
with his mother, who is very fond of me. Then, Bridget, 
I met a man whom I love, whom I almost worship.” 

Bridget’s face was white, and her hands were cold. “ But, 
Belle, you have not forgotten the teachings of our faith; the 
teachings that even nature herself impresses upon us. You 
do not believe in divorce. This love of yours is bom of 
darkness; it means ruin to your immortal soul. O Belle!” 
She arose in her pure womanhood and took her sister in her 
arms. “Your soul is as dear to me as my own. Let me 
save you; do not return to the city.” 

Then Bridget, strong, brave Bridget, broke down and 
wept hopelessly. “But what can I do if you remain at 
home! My hands are tied. Brother Andy is married, 


MlftSET, 

and Willy’s few dollars from the breaker won’t keep him- 
self, let alone mam. I have worked and worked up here, 
but the pay is so poor. I tried to get a school to teach, and 
Hugh Nolan helped me, but I failed. I must go to the 
city before many months have passed.” % 

“Bridget, we part at Mine Run,” said Belle, with ter- 
rible earnestness. “You must not inquire about me. If 
you search for me, you may find heartache. The world is 
a great, wide ocean; I shall float on its bosom for a time, 
then sink into oblivion. You and I must drift asunder, 
dear, though it break both our hearts. There is no telling 
what I may do. But pray for me.” 

Next day Belle went to the city, alone. Small wonder 
poor Bridget wept so bitterly at the parting; perhaps her 
heart told her that dreary months and years would pass 
before they met again. 


CHAPTER Vli. 


WHAT’S IN A NAME? 

“Mam,” said Bridget one spring morning, “there is but 
little chance around here for a girl; I must go to the city.” 

“Well, you know best, Biddy dear; but how I’ll miss 
you!” wiping a tear from her eye. “Maybe you could get 
into one of them big stores and earn lots of money, fer your 
father certainly give you book-learning enough, and you 
ain’t no stupid.” 

So it was settled. Bridget wrote to Katie Finley in the 
city, and she secured a position as upstairs girl for her. 
Then Bridget said farewell to Mine Run, where she had 
spent her life, and went to earn her bread among strangers. 
It was hard to say good-bye to the old scenes, even if only for 
a time, and Bridget experienced a sinking at her heart. 
When she pressed her face against the train window, that 
the other passengers might not see her tear-dimmed eyes, 
she felt that, despite her nineteen years, she was very much 
of a baby. 

One last look at the towering beetled-browed mountains 
which girded the little town round about; at the dear old 
church; at the poor homes of the miners, with the black 
roofs, weather-beaten sides and crazy porches; at the 
little old house in which she had been so happy, and which 
like a frightened owl, stared with its windows at the road. 

Then she was whirled miles and miles away from Mine 
Run — among towering coal banks, with slimy green, yellow 
and black streams flowing at their feet; through dreary 
swamps, with moss-covered logs, high brush and languid 
water lilies; through desolate wastes of coal culm, which had 
hardened in the sun’s rays, and in which dead white tree 


34 


BRIDGET. 


trunks stood; through pretty towns and thick woods, over 
brooks and creeks, along by green fields and smiling 
meadows — till she reached the enchanted garden of her 
fancy, the city. 

She was little more than a week in the city before she 
partly conquered her homesickness, for Bridget had the 
courage of a Camilla. She lived with an old woman and 
her daughter. The work was hard, the pay small, yet 
to the poor coal region girl her labor was extremely light 
in comparison with what it had been. Though the mother 
and daughter were very wealthy, each in her own right, 
they made poor Bridget even riddle the ashes, to pick out 
any scraps of coal she might find therein. 

Often in the beginning, when she was homesick, she 
was tempted to toss her few belongings into her dolPs 
trunk, and go back to Mine Run. At such times, the 
thought of her widowed mother who needed support, 
furnished a new stimulus to her. Bridget wondered if the 
mistresses when they swept down into the kitchen, ever 
dreamed of how much suffering their unkind words caused 
the sensitive, weary, homesick heart of their servant. Surely 
they did not, or no woman could so afflict another. 

Katie Finley soon discovered that all was not well with 
Bridget, and found a new place for her. Bridget was to 
be chambermaid for the Weyland family. Katie was cook 
there. 

The Weylands, a widowed mother and daughter Aurora, 
resided in the suburbs of the city. The latter was engaged 
to her first cousin, Wayne Carter, a poor artist, who being 
an orphan, stayed with the Weylands. 

Aurora Weyland was not beautiful, far from it, alas! 
Despite her name, she was not in the early dawn, of her 
womanhood; for she had made her debut so long ago that 
she never mentioned anything about it. Her friends tried 
to say that her hair was Titian, but her foes more truthfully 
styled it red. She never spoke about her complexion, nor 
did she dare to appear decollette, and she detested short 


OR WHAT'S IN A NAME? 


35 


sleeves. Her figure might have been passable, had her 
walk not been so very awkard. This was the woman whom 
debonair, beauty-loving, penniless Wayne Carter was 
to wed in a fortnight. 

Strangers moved into the cottage next to the Weylands\ 
On the evening of their arrival, the coachman and cook 
were chatting about the neighbors. 

“Yes,” said he, “their name is Weyland, and the lady 
is tall and very handsome, like a queen. One of the girls 
is stumpy and red-haired. I don’t think we’ll care for her 
at all, she is so much like a lemon with her cross face. But 
there’s the lady now.” 

Bridget was in the garden; and it turned out that the 
“stumpy and red-haired” one was Aurora, while the “tall 
and very handsome ” one was Bridget. 

That same evening another unsought compliment was 
paid to Bridget. She was dressed in a white lawn and had 
gone down the graveled walk to the front gate. Mrs. 
Weyland and a friend, a stylishly attired lady, evidently 
a stranger, sat together on the porch. 

“Ah, Miss Aurora, I presume? What a charming girl 
she is!” drawled the visitor. 

“No, that’s our servant,” returned the mistress with 
a frown. 

Mrs. Weyland asked Bridget to change her name. “I 
do so hate Bridget,” she said; “let me call you something 
else.” 

A flash came into Bridget’s fine Irish blue eyes. “ Bridget 
is my name, Mrs. Weyland,” she returned sharply. “I 
will have no other.” 

Mrs. Weyland took no pains to conceal her displeasure, 
but Bridget was obdurate. 

“You ought to have done it for peace’ sake, and to please 
her, Bridget,” said Katie Finley. “She’s a funny woman 
to understand, is Mrs. Weyland. Besides, I know two 
girls who have changed their name; Bridget Gorman is 
now Belle, and Bridget O’Hara is now Loretta, They 


36 ' MffiGET, 

did it to save our holy St. Bridget from being made 
fun of:” 

“Katie,” answered the pious Bridget, “how could I 
ever face dear St. Bridget in heaven, if I were ashamed 
to bear her name on earth? Let them say what they like, 
let them. make fun of me if they will; but Bridget I was 
christened, and Bridget I’ll be when the holy oils are put 
on me for the last time, if God and St. Bridget think me 
worthy of such grace. Why, pap would blush for me in 
heaven, if he knew I did such a cowardly thing. 

“I knew a girl who changed her name, and it brought 
her to grief. She is married now to a nice young man. 
She was Bridget Shea, but she thought Isabel prettier than 
Bridget. The pastor was away from home the first Sunday 
she was called out, and the curate mentioned her as Miss 
Isabel Shea. Next Sunday when the pastor gave a second 
‘call out’ he mentioned her as Miss Bridget Shea, much 
to the girl’s confusion.” 

A few days later, Nettie Tregellas, a young friend of 
the Weylands, was chatting with Mrs. Weyland. (Nettie, 
by the way, was a music teacher; and though she had the 
airs of a duchess, was too poor to buy a piano, so Aurora 
Weyland allowed her to practise on hers.) 

“Who is the tall, beautiful young lady that admits me 
every day I ring? She is so refined and so gentle; opens 
the piano, draws aside the curtains, and makes everything 
so pleasant for me. Such a figure as she has,” said Miss 
Tregellas to Mrs. Weyland. 

“Why, that’s Bridget. I’m glad you like her, every- 
body does.” 

“Oh, no,” with a little toss of her yellow head and a 
slight contraction of her arched brows, “this cannot be 
Bridget to whom I refer.” 

“ A tall young woman, a roll of wavy black hair, a delicate 
little aquiline nose, dazzling teeth?” 

“Yes, that’s the one.” 

“Well, she is Bridget.” 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


37 

Miss Tregellas was horrified. ‘‘Why don’t you ask her 
to change that horrid name?” 

Bridget, besides her upstair work, was waitress for the 
Weylands. Mrs. Weyland was as proud of her as she was 
of her rarest and best china. It is so pleasant to have a 
waitress ornamental as well as useful. 

Wayne Carter, in a spirit of confidence told one of his 
chums, Norman Stroud, that he was in love with the waitress’ 
graceful hands. The chum winked. 

“Don’t let your betrothed learn about your admiration 
for this handsome Biddy, else there’ll be a storm. And 
look out for yourself, old fellow. From your glowing 
description, I judge that Bridget has made an extraordinary 
impression, and if she’s clever — well! But, by the way, 
have you made any advances ? ” 

“Advances! She hardly notices me. That girl’s got 
the pride of Lucifer; she’s a Bridget in name only; and to 
tell you the truth, old pard, I am deuced fond of her — 
nearly heels over head in love with her.” 

“He, he! Don’t let Aurora Carter hear you say that, 
Wayne. By Jove, I must get a glimpse of this paragon of 
beauty and virtue, this Desdemona masquerading as Bridget ; 
give me a tip to dinner, say to-morrow evening. Jingo, 
you seem to have a sweetheart for every day in the year, 
Wayne. You have got over your infatuation for that pretty 
witch of an actress, Lalite Frazer.” 

“Fah, she merely fascinated me. But I’m frank; I 
love Bridget.” 

Wayne Carter failed to notice the evil look in Norman 
Stroud’s eyes, nor did he hear him mutter under his breath : 

“We are quits now, my fine fellow, my fortune-hunter. 
You took Lalite Frazer from me, the only woman I ever 
really cared for, but every dog has his day. Wait ! ” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


MYSTERIOUS LOUISE. 

One day as Bridget was ironing some of Miss Aurora’s 
white skirts, she heard a light step, and a woman came into 
the laundry. She was not young, yet not oM. Her face 
was thin, but not angular; her mouth was large, but sweet; 
her eyes big and sad-looking; her complexion clear with 
a faint trace of pink in either cheek. She was about medium 
height and was dressed all in black; her hat, a little, old- 
fashioned affair, covered with a black veil. She certainly 
was no ordinary person, Bridget wished her good after- 
noon. 

“Are you the new girl?” she said. “Katie Finley has 
told me that your name is Bridget Purcel. Well, if you are 
at all like the girl whose place you have taken, you and I 
shall be friends.” 

Bridget hoped she was very much like the girl who had 
left, and she said so. Here Katie entered with a few of 
Mrs. Weyland’s filmy white petticoats. She glanced coldly 
at the woman in black, and Bridget noticed that the stranger 
shrank back as if from a frosty blast. 

“Katie, you might introduce me to this lady.” Bridget 
said “lady” advisedly, for truly that woman was a lady. 

“Louise is the only name she has here,” returned Katie, 
in a chilling tone; then she returned to the kitchen. 

“I think Katie must not be well to-day,” Bridget said 
apologetically to the woman in black, “else she would 
not act so.” 

“It is nothing new for her to treat me in that way, Brid- 
get.” 

Bridget was pleased that she did not call her “Miss Pur- 

ge!;” Louise and she were alreadj^ friends; Bridget had 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


39 


never met a woman so fascinating. Bridget sent her friend 
a cup of tea and a bit of toast which she enjoyed. As 
Bridget ironed on, Louise chatted in beautiful language 
about different devotions of the Church till Bridget began 
to think that she must have read the lives of all the saints. 
Her way of preaching was simply irresistible, so “chatty” 
was it. She then took out a little worn prayer-book, and 
silently read from it for some time. 

That night when Katie and Bridget were alone at supper, 
Bridget said: “My, I think you treated that woman, Louise, 
very coldly to-day.” 

“I know I did, but I have no respect for her.” 

“No respect for her! Why, Katie, I can’t help but 
respect her.” 

“That is because you don’t know her. Women in con- 
vents ought to stay there, and not leave them,” she added 
significantly. 

“You don’t mean to say that she was a nun, Katie.” 

“Oh, Bridget, you goose, of course, I meant that she was 
the woman who swept cobwebs from the moon. But you 
will find out, if you live long enough, that there are lots of 
people in this world who won’t have ‘St.’ before their names 
after death.” 

In the many years after that night, did Bridget find to her 
cost that Katie Finley’s words were ever coming true. 
“Alas! What are we doing all our lives. ..but unlearning 
the world’s poetry and attaining to its prose?” 

The black-robed woman came to see Bridget two or 
three times every week. Bridget grew fonder of her, and 
used to long for her visits. One time she noticed that 
Louise had long thin ropes with her, and on inquiring 
learned that they were cords of St. Francis. 

“I sell them,” she explained, “for I find it hard some- 
times to make ends meet.” 

“I must have one,” Bridget said. Louise would accept 
no money for it. 

“Take it to Father Norbert, he will bless it for yon, but 

dpn’t tpll him where you got it.” 


40 


BRIDGET, 


Katie continued in her unfriendly treatment of Louise, 
but she never seemed to be angry with Katie. 

“Katie k a good girl at heart,” she told Bridget. “Her 
virtues are many. She is simple. Her home training was 
good, but it lacked one requisite — the overlooking of an- 
other’s faults. She would not do wrong herself, so she 
has no pity for anyone who may err. We are too hard 
with one another. O child, Christ was not that way. 
Did He spurn from his pure feet Magdalen, that daughter 
of sin? Did He, Purity itself, cast the first stone at the 
woman taken in adultery? Did He scornfully draw aside 
His garments and pass by the sin-stained Samaritan woman ? 

“Katie is a good girl, Bridget dear, but not a kind one. 
Oh, our unkindness, our biting, stinging words; our cruel, 
discouraging looks; our cynical smiles, which are more 
than blows! Oh, if we but knew the value of our kind in- 
terpretations, of our cheering smiles, of our gentle, soothing 
words! What a grand old world this would be if there 
were more kindness in it! Many a saint in heaven has been 
sent thither by a cheering word. Many a soul that is lost 
and shut out from God’s sight forever, would be a shining 
light in that land beyond the grave, had some one said a 
kind word at the proper time, and left a cruel word unsaid.” 

She was weeping now very softly. “So many have been 
unkind to me, Bridget, so very few kind to me. It was 
unkindnesss that left me as I am to-day — not my own 
unkindness, but another’s. I was weak, and a few unkind 
words changed my whole life.” Bridget waited for her 
to tell something of her past life. “Pray for me, Bridget, 
pray often for me; I need your good prayers. Sometime, 
but not now, I shall tell you my story. There must be a 
change in my life soon, I will not always be thus.” 

She never after that made any mention of her past life. 

One afternoon Bridget was frying fish. It was Katie’s 
“day out,” and Bridget was cook till her return. The 
door bell rang, and Bridget hurried to the street door. 
Some of the lard had splashed on her apron, so she thought 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


41 


she would peep through the window to see who the caller 
was before she opened the door. She gently drew aside 
the curtain and saw Louise on the porch. Then she re- 
membered that the gate at the rear of the house was locked. 
She hastily let the curtain fall and went to open the door. 

The smell of burning fish came to her nostrils; she had 
left the frying-pan on the stove. She ran to the kitchen 
just in time to save the fish from becoming a holocaust. 
Laughing at her mistake, she opened the front door and 
looked out. Louise was vanishing around the corner. 
Doubtless she had seen Bridget at the window and had 
certainly heard her run to the kitchen. Perhaps she thought 
that Bridget had grown tired of her and no longer cared 
for her society. She was so accustomed to being slighted 
that such conduct on Bridget’s part would pain, but not 
astonish her. 

Bridget waited, but Louise came no more. Bridget 
tried to fathom the mystery. Perhaps the “change” of 
which Louise spoke had been brought to pass. Perhaps 
she fell ill, she was so delicate. Perhaps she died. But 
day after day went by, and still Louise came not. 


CHAPTER IX. 


‘‘THE MINER’S WIFE.” 

Aurora Weyland took to Bridget at once, and was so 
very kind that Bridget commenced thinking she had found 
her way into Paradise. No more dusty, greasy mining 
clothes to wash, no more socks to darn, no water of any 
account to carry, no immense ironings, no long trips to 
neighboring stores for provisions, as had been her lot at 
home. 

She often swept Wayne Carter’s studio, and stood amazed 
at his pictures, for he%ad real talent. Sometimes he and 
Aurora talked with her, and were surprised to find her”so 
bright and intelligent. 

“She’s a splendid conversationalist, Rora,” said Wayne; 
“she’s almost as good as you are, and that is saying a great 
deal, for if you are anything at all, you are a finished talker.” 

Bridget was sharp; she soon saw that Aurora was much 
fonder of Wayne than he was of her, but it never entered 
the simple girl’s mind that he could be marrying Aurora 
for her money. She thought that they being cousins and 
having been raised side by side, their love grew up with 
them. But she herself would not care to marry her first 
cousin. 

Wayne always smiled when he met Bridget alone, and 
his white teeth under his black mustache looked very 
pleasant. He paid her many compliments, at all of which 
she laughed. 

One evening when Bridget was walking through the beau- 
tiful grounds, Aurora, who was then Mrs. Carter, came 
to her. 

“Such a pretty picture you make here, Bridget, in your 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


43 


white dress! Oh, dear, if I only had your beauty, how 
much more I could enjoy life! You can wear anything 
at all. If I had such a figure, what gowns I could display!” 

“Yes, I may look well, Mrs. Carter,” replied Bridget, 
“but I am only to be looked at, nothing more. I do not 
know French; I do not embroider skilfully; I cannot play 
a chord on one musical instrument; I cannot look at a 
flower or bird, and then take out my brush and copy it. 
So you see you are luckier than I am.” 

“O Bridget, what a pity you could not have had more 
education; I think you would be very brilliant.” 

“Perhaps I might, and perhaps I might not. My dear 
father gave me as much education as he could, and I was 
fine at mathematics. How I used to devour books! Really, 
Mrs. Carter, I often reflect that roughs who are put into 
charitable homes or educational institutions are very for- 
tunate. Think of young men and women wasting them- 
selves because they have no chance for an education.” 

“Don’t say ‘wasting themselves,’ Bridget, if they are 
like you; how can they waste themselves when they spread 
such sunshine about those with whom they come in con- 
tact!” 

“You are very kind, too kind, Mrs. Carter.” 

“I am only just, Bridget. I really envy the man who 
will lead you to the altar.” 

“I don’t,” was the laughing rejoinder, “I pity him, 
you don’t know me.” 

“Now,” said Mrs. Carter, “I need not tell you that Wayne 
is doing very well with his pictures, and I am certain that 
you rejoice with him and me. I am very proud of my 
husband, Bridget. You like him, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” said Bridget rather coldly, but very politely, 
for she did not like Wayne Carter. She had not been long 
enough with society men and women to fib readily. 

“He is going to paint a picture that will make his fame, 
Bridget. Won’t it be grand when I wake up some morning 
to find my husband famous! You must assist him, Bridget, 
he says.” 


44 BRIDGET, 

‘T assist him! How can I but by keeping his studio 
fairly tidy?” 

“ Oh, you can greatly assist him by posing, and you will, 
won’t you ? ” 

“Yes, since you ask me.” 

Bridget posed as “The Miner’s Wife.” 

“The most natural picture, I think, would be the wife 
filling her husband’s dinner-can,” she suggested. 

And Carter immediately agreed with her. 

As the picture slowly came to life under the artist’s brush, 
his wife )vas wont to sit in his studio and study Bridget’s 
lovely face. Both were very kind to the model, and after 
each sitting, Mrs. Carter always walked with Bridget in 
the garden. 

“But you will never be a miner’s wife, my dear girl, will 
you ? ” 

Bridget blushed. “Perhaps, Mrs. Carter. But no 
miner has ever asked me to be his wife.” She was thinking 
of Hugh Nolan. How she longed to see him again! But 
very likely he cared nothing for her. 

On a bright afternoon in June, Bridget was standing 
alone in a large open field that touched the Weyland grounds. 
She had just finished posing for “The Miner’s Wife,” and 
the artist was admiring the offspring of his brush. Mrs. 
Carter,, not feeling well, had gone to bed. Bridget stood 
in the long grass, the bright-eyed daisies and their pink- 
eyed sisters, the clover blossoms, looking up at her. She 
seldom day-dreamed among the well-kept beds and care- 
fully cultured flowers of the Weyland garden; she liked to 
go out into nature’s realm, where man’s cunning hand had 
no part. She was not like other girls; few had her sim- 
plicity and simple tastes. Her thoughts were at Mine Run. 

“If I only knew he cared for me, I should not mind, 
but he may marry some one else.” 

She heard the grass rustle behind her, and turning saw 
Wayne Carter, hat in hand, bowing before her. Her color 
changed; she instinctively disliked this mar* 



HER THOUGHTS WERE AT MINE RUN. 





45 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAjVIE? 

“You look like a duchess out here,” he said; “not very 
much like a miner’s wife.” She smiled so very chillingly 
that he ceased to compliment at once. “ But you will never 
be a miner’s wife, I dare say ? ” he added. 

“For that matter, I may never be any^man’s wife,” she 
retorted. She threw back her head and shot a cold glance 
at him. 

“Bridget! Bridget! don’t you see I love you! You 
have set my soul on fire.” 

“Your wife should have done that, sir, else you should 
not have married her.” 

“But she did not. Bridget be mine.” He was very 
earnest and he came close to her. 

“Man, are you insane? Your wife is living.” 

“ But that need not interfere. Bridget, I love you madly. 
Stay!” for she was walking swiftly in the direction of the 
house. “Say that you love me, or will learn to love me. 
I will dress you like a queen, I will shower jewels upon 
you.” 

“Yes, with your wife’s money,” she said bitterly, but 
sadly. Poor Aurora! “And I might say, sir, that if she 
is at all like me and finds out about this nonsense of yours, 
she will close her purse against you.” 

“Ha!” he returned, “you fear that Aurora will not give 
me her fortune. But she need not know of our love. One- 
half my life in a cottage with you, Bridget, the other half 
with cold Aurora.” 

Bridget faced him, just as he attempted to embrace her. 
The weak artist was no match for the steel-sinewed mine 
girl. Before he could kiss her lips, she had flung him yards 
from her with one violent push. He lost his balance and 
fell into a clump of blackberry bushes. He made a ridicu- 
lous picture, trying to extricate himself from the thorns, 
his face and hands bleeding; but Bridget’s heart was too 
full of sorrow for her to look back. Oh, the poor trusting 
wife! 

“I shall have to leave this beautiful home,” she reflected, 


46 


BRIDGET 


“and I may never see dear Mrs. Carter again. Oh, Hugh, 
Hugh, if all men were like you. Beauty to a working girl 
is a curse.- I feel so much alone, so much alone. Oh, 
Belle,” she burst into violent sobs, “where are you? What 
benefit has your sweet face been to you. Pap, pap,” her 
tears flowed fast indeed, “are you near your poor Bridget? 
Oh, if I could only lay my head on your dear breast, and 
feel that I had one to protect me, for after all I am only 
a girl.” 

In a little while she was herself again, and calmly viewed 
her position. She must leave her present employment, but 
what excuse could she allege to Mrs. Carter? Bridget’s 
smooth brow wrinkled; Mrs. Carter was so fond of her. 
She packed her trunk; she would say good-bye to her mis- 
tress next day. A letter from home came that evening, 
written in the scrawly hand of her brother Willy. It was 
in its way a godsend. Her mother was slightly ill it said. 
“And you know. Bid, you ain’t bin home for ever so long. 
I think maybe it you was to come, for she is always wishing 
you was back, she would get all right.” 

The clock had struck only eight. She dressed herself 
hastily and went to Mrs. Carter. 

“But why need you take your trunk, Bridget?” 

“Because I shall not return. My mother is old, and she 
needs me. She — she wants me to stay at home with her.” 
Bridget still found it hard to tell white lies. 

“But you will write to me, won’t you, Bridget?” said 
Mrs. Carter, with tears of genuine regret in her eyes. “ Oh, 
I am so sorry to lose you!” 

It was early in the morning when Bridget got off the train 
at Mine Run. Not a soul was stirring, and everything, 
but the old colliery, was silent. There noise abounded to 
murder sleep; steam hissing; cars rattling and groaning; 
a man with a lamp on his head going hither and thither, 
whistling in a piercing way. 

Bridget looked up at the dull windows of Hugh Nolan’s 
home, and her heart beat happily. Oh, if she could only 


OR WHAT^S IN A NAME? 


47 

lay her head on his broad chest, and let his strong arms 
guard her! She was only a girl, only a girl after all. 

She saw a light burning in her old home. Oh, the memo- 
ries! The scalding tears darted to her eyes. She tapped 
at the door, a window was thrown up, then out shot her 
brother Willy’s head. He did not exclaim “Bridget!” 
as she had expected, but quietly came downstairs. He 
opened the door, and Bridget folded him in her arms and 
kissed him. 

“Sure, Bid, you never got the despatch so soon!” he said. 

“No,” she replied, the truth dawning on her. “Mam 
is worse?” 

“She is mighty low. Bid,” with a boyish sob, “and Andy 
and Christy is upstairs with her. She tuk a turn about 
nine o’clock, and we thought she was gone. Christy sent 
you the despatch then. She’s had the priest,” he added, 
as Bridget entered the sick room. 

Mrs. Purcel was supported by her son Christy’s arm. 
One glance at the dear thin old face told Bridget the truth; 
her mother was dying. 

“Me own Biddy, sure I knowed you’d be here to close 
me eyes. Don’t cry so hard for me, alanna; I’m going 
to your pap.” 

Bridget talked softly and soothingly to her mother. Mrs. 
Purcel made no mention of her absent daughter, and a 
sudden fear took possession of Bridget. 

“Mam, you have forgiven Belle from your heart, haven’t 
you? You know we must forgive all injuries before we 
see God’s holy face.” 

“O yes, aroon; don’t fear. I’ve forgive her — but, ugh! 
look what she done to me!” she added with a little bitter- 
ness. “But still for God’s dear sake, I have forgive her; 
for Him that I’ll soon see,” striking her breast, “wasn’t 
spiteful again no one. When He hung there on the cross 
for three whole hours and never a one to brush even a fly 
from Him, His thoughts were to forgive them a-murder- 
ing him.” 


48 


BRIDGET, 


Long the mother and her daughter and three sons prayed 
together. The first rays of sun stealing through the window, 
Bridget arose, turned down the light, blew it out. When 
she looked round, there was a golden glow on her mother’s 
head. A ray of sunshine had pierced through the window, 
had fallen across the brow, and was softly flushing the calm 
old face — ^just as God’s glory was shedding upon the soul 
that had gone before His throne. 

When she had seen her mother laid to rest in the dear 
old churchyard — laid to rest with her Mike, the Mike who 
had been the light of her life — Bridget remained near the 
mound on her knees, after all the other mourners had 
departed. 

“O pap, O mam, you are safe here, but where is Belle, 
oh, where is Belle ? O dear, dead and gone parents, let me 
find her, let me bring her here, to lie with you, and Biddy 
is satisfied.” 

Bridget stayed a few days with her brother Andy and 
his wife. 

“You needn’t to bother about Willy,”- said he; “I’m 
going to have him stay with me.” 

Before she returned to the city, she went to pay Mrs. 
Nolan a visit. During her recent bereavement, the old 
woman had shown herself a good and kind friend. Bridget 
blushed a little when she saw that Hugh Nolan was at home, 
but he failed to notice that. 

“Sure ’tis lonely you’ll be going back to the city and 
feeling you ain’t got no home at all. Bridget, ’tis high time 
you were thinking of making a home for yourself,” said 
Mrs. Nolan. 

Hugh’s face was turned from Bridget just then, and she 
saw only the back of his fine head. Oh, her poor yearning 
heart! She felt embarrassed and Mrs. Nolan knew it. 

“How old were you, Mrs. Nolan, when you married?” 
she asked, trying to keep the color from her cheeks, and 
seeking to parry the old woman’s banter 

“A year younger than yourself when Hugh’s father came 
and marched me off. Sure, he gave me no peace at all, 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


49 


at all. Doesn’t that boy there bring him back afore me 
as he was?” and she touched her eyes with her spotless 
apron. ‘‘But Hugh ain’t so bold as his father; sure, the 
boy ought to have a wife, and not be a-keeping his old 
mother so lonesome. Bridget, I’ll be going one of these 
days, and he won’t have no one to take care of him.” 

Hugh turned quickly, and his face was unmoved as he 
looked at Bridget. 

“I’ll have to take care of myself, mam, when you are 
gone.” 

Bridget’s heart gave a great leap, then sank low in her 
bosom. Hugh stood up a splendid man, perfectly calm; 
he had great self-control. 

“Mam, this cut on my knuckle needs a new dressing.” 

Bridget’s quick eyes noticed that his right hand was 
bandaged. 

“It slipped me mind, son; you know me old crane ain’t 
as good as it used to be for rememb’ring. Here, Bridget, 
you were always fine at such things. Sure, when you were 
knee-high to a grasshopper, it did me good to see how you 
tied up the boys’ hands when they came home cut from 
the breakers.” 

There was nothing for Bridget to do, but dress the wound. 
As she held the injured member in her strong, slender hands, 
little did she think that every nerve in the man’s great mus- 
cular body was quivering, and his heart hammering away 
like a smithy’s sledge. He was studying the rich dark hair, 
the round peachy cheek, the parted red lips, the lovely 
throat, as she bent so near him; but he hid his feelings 
well. Only once did his fingers quiver; that was when 
Bridget was binding the wound. 

“I am not tying it too tightly ? ” she asked tenderly. 

*“No.” 

He smiled into her big eyes. Had she seared the gash 
with a hot iron, and kept those eyes on him, he was certain 
he would not have felt the pain. 

“Where does Miss Bridget Parcel live?” floated in 


^6 MIDGEI, 

through the open window. It was a well-trained voice, 
a man’s. 

Hugh glanced out from where he was sitting, and saw 
a well-looking, well-dressed stranger. A great flood of 
bitterness and jealousy welled up in his heart. “A wealthy 
lover!” he thought. He turned to look at Bridget. Her 
cheeks were flushed very red, and her eyes were sparkling. 
She was angry, but Hugh did not know that. The flood 
of bitterness and jealousy rose into his throat and almost 
strangled him. Bridget had shrunk back, that the man 
outside might not see her. It was Wayne Carter. 


CHAPTER X. 


GREEK MEETS GREEK. 

Aurora Carter was attiring herself hurriedly, and the 
haste evident in her dress did not add anything to her 
appearance. 

“You say, Andrew, that he bought a ticket for Mine 
Run ? ” she inquired for the fiftieth time of her butler. 

“Yes, ma^am, for Mine Run. I heard him ask for the 
ticket.” 

“How long ago?” 

‘ ‘ Y esterday afternoon . ’ * 

“He has been so different since Bridget is gone,” she 
said, hurrying to her cab. “I wondered why he was so 
eager to find out where she lived.” 

She pondered all the way to the station. “He is fas- 
cinated with her,” — Aurora would not let herself think 
him in love with Bridget, — “and no wonder.” She threw 
up her veil and glanced at herself in the pier glass. “Ah, 
me, you suffer by the comparison, Aurora. A woman 
with one-half her charms could set any man mad from 
Solomon to Socrates. I can hardly believe that Bridget 
has encouraged him; she is too noble a woman. Still she 
may have; perhaps she loves him; I cannot blame her. 
Oh, I will plead with her; he is all I have; I will give her 
half my fortune, if she will only go far away, where he 
cannot see her again. She can find many men to love 
her; he is all I have.” 

The poor creature had no reproofs in her heart either 
for her husband or for Bridget. 

And while the wife was so unselfishly thinking of her 
husband, where was he, and where were his thoughts ? 

It was a beautiful afternoon at Mine Run; the sun never 


52 


BRIDGET, 


seemed fairer. The old colliery was as usual pouring forth 
from its many windows clouds upon clouds of dust. Its 
jigs and screens and elevators and steam pipes and rollers 
and dump-carts and coal cars, all contributed their quota 
to the general noise. The banks, ash and rock and culm, 
looked grim enough, but the high, beautiful mountains, 
robed in rich foliage and beautiful flower-decked laurels, 
were only the more lovely by contrast. 

Bridget Purcel was on her way to the churchyard, to 
visit the grave of her parents. That day she was to leave 
Mine Run. The cemetery was situated on the mountain 
side, about half a mile from the village. 

Ah, Bridget, as you slowly and thoughtfully wend your 
way under the tall trees, over the rough gravels, along the 
zigzag path, of whom are you thinking? Of Belle, the 
absent, well-loved Belle. 

The girl’s graceful figure had hardly disappeared into 
the woods, when a man’s figure followed the same path, 
and he had hardly vanished into a mass of thick brush 
when a veiled woman followed him. 

Bridget went into the quiet graveyard and prayed for 
some time; then she became conscious of loud talking 
outside the cemetery fence. At first she paid no attention 
but when she heard a familiar voice cry out, “You would 
not kill me?” and another too familiar voice reply with 
an oath, she sprang to her feet and darted to the gate. She 
knew that within a stone’s throw of the cemetery was an 
old mine breach full of water. It had been there from 
time out of mind. She recalled in that instant how she 
and Belle had been wont to lean over the brink and look 
at their faces in the black water, yet how they both had 
feared it. Tearing her skirts in her haste, she sped through 
the laurel bushes till she came suddenly within sight of 
the mine breach. 

She saw Wayne Carter with his hands on his wife’s thin 
throat and her on her knees. So blind was he with rage 
and wine, that he failed to notice Bridget, and was beginning 
to drag the weak form to the awful water. 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


S3 


“Stop, beast 1” Bridget’s voice, clear as a bell, seemed 
to turn the would-be uxorcide to stone. She was at his 
side now and had taken Aurora in her arms. “Go,” said 
Bridget sternly, “go, if you are wise. Go, or so help me 
heaven, I will make the miners lynch you.” 

He slunk away like a whipped cur, and Bridget turned 
her whole attention to his wife. ' She had not fainted, but 
was very weak and nervous. Bridget thought the greatest 
kindness she could do Mrs. Carter was to remain silent. 
After a little while the unhappy wife spoke: 

“ O Bridget, I almost wish you had let him kill me! Better 
to die in those black waters than to let black heartache 
eat away my life. Bridget, you seem to be the innocent 
curse of my life. But I do not, I cannot in justice blame 
you. Any man would love you!” 

Then she knew! Bridget sat down on the grass, and 
Mrs. Carter laid her head on her bosom — just as another 
dear head had lain there. 

“Believe me, Mrs. Carter,” she said tearfully, “I do not 
care for your husband, I’ neverMid. If I could’^have my 
wish, he would be all that a husband should be, and would 
love you as you deserve to be loved.” 

“God bless you, dear, sweet, good girl. I was not wrong 
in my judgment of you. Yet, Bridget, it would have been 
much better had I never seen you.” 

Bridget silently admitted that. “But, Mrs. Carter,” 
she said consolingly, “your husband may learn to love 
you only the better now. This infatuation has died, or 
shall soon die, for I will scorn him. He will be glad to 
love you.” 

“Never now, Bridget, never, never.” She said those 
words as if her death knell were ringing in her ears. 

Bridget did not ask an explanation of why she had come 
to Mine Run; she knew why Wayne Carter had come; 
but when she and the wretched wife were on the train en 
route to the city, she told her all. How she had noticed 
her husband’s gloom after Bridget left ; how she discovered 


54 


BRIDGET, 


through her butler, of his going to Mine Run; how she had 
gone after him at once; how she learned at the poor little 
hotel where he was registered that he had walked up the 
mountain side; how she had been directed and followed 
him. 

^‘Before you posed for ‘The Miner’s Wife,’ I was warned 
of his love for you. I received an anonymous letter from 
some man whom he had taken into his confidence; but I 
paid no attention to the letter; only laughed and threw it 
into the fire. 

“When I met him on the mountain to-day, Wayne was 
almost stunned at seeing me. I entreated him for love of 
his wife to leave Mine Run with me. He laughed and said 
that unfortunately he had no love for me. He told me to 
my face that he had married me for my money, and now 
when he was succeeding so well in his chosen profession 
he needed not my money. He called me a hag. My re- 
plies — for I am not meek or patient — so angered him that 
he was about to commit murder. He had followed you, 
Bridget, had missed you, and was going to murder for you. 
He wants to be free; free to love, woo, wed you.” 

“Mrs. Carter, you may take my word, I will never 
marry your husband.” 

“ Never, Bridget ? Will you promise ? ” 

Bridget for a moment thought. “I need not promise, 
Mrs. Carter,” she said. “I love another, and can love him 
only.” 

Mrs. Carter was satisfied. At the station in the city, 
she kissed Bridget lingeringly. “We part forever, dear 
girl,” she said. “But I shall never forget you.” She 
turned away, then looked at Bridget again. “I am the 
better for having met such a woman.” 

She was gone. Bridget never saw her again. 

Mrs. Weyland seemed discontented as she sat alone 
eating almonds. 

‘‘There is a mystery somewhere,” said the grand old 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


55 


dame to her reflection in the mirror. “My poor Aurora! 
why did I ever let her marry that selfish, worldly Wayne 
Carter! But my conscience is clear; I could not prevent 
the match; she would have her own way; she would lose 
her life or get him. She has him now, but he is harder to 
hold than an eel.” She patted her roll of white hair with 
her ringed hand. “I could wish Aurora prettier, but Wayne 
Carter might have married an uglier woman. It is as plain 
as daylight that he married her purse, not her, but if I told 
her that, she would lash me with her sharp tongue. But 
my poor girl!” she pressed a webby handkerchief to her 
eyes, then put a few more almonds into her mouth, “what 
a pity that she must be unhappy! Wayne Carter is like his 
father before him; he broke my dear sister’s heart. Poor 
Lola, Aurora is like her. 

“So he is gone to — Hello, Andrew! Where did you say 
Mr. Carter went? Oh, to Mine Run! — So he is gone to 
Mine Run, and Aurora is gone after him. That lovely 
Bridget, why did I engage her! He worships pretty faces; 
and there is something so winning about the innocence of 
those country girls, something so appealing to men of the 
world.” 

Her reverie was ended here by the entrance of Aurora; 
travel-stained, her face blackened from the train smoke, 
her eyes and nose red from crying, her hair a mass of long, 
straight wisps. Mrs. Weyland arose and helped Aurora 
to take off her hat. She had resolved to make no mention 
of Wayne, but her curiosity got the better of her. 

“Did you find him, Aurora?” she asked abruptly. 

The poor wife gave vent to a fresh burst of sobs. “O 
ma, don’t ask me.” 

“Cut him out of your will, daughter, cut him out of your 
will, don’t leave him a cent!” 

“Ma, money, forever money with you. Money is the 
greatest of evils.” 

“It is a necessary evil, Aurora. But don’t excite your- 
self. Gracious, you are a positive fright; j^ou looked bad 


56 


BRIDGET, 


enough going away, but you are worse coming back. Take 
a cup of tea. Wait, I’ll ring.” 

“ Ma, don’t drive me raving mad. What do I want with 
tea! What do I want with anything! ” 

‘‘ Girl, girl, you do rave. But you are not to be reasoned 
with, I see; come to your room.” 

And the portly ex-society leader strutted on ahead, just 
as in the days long gone by she might have led a grand 
march. 

The day subsequent, Aurora Carter made a slight change 
in her will — ten thousand dollars were to go to Bridget 
Purcel, the rest to Wayne Carter. 

‘Tt is not very much to give her,” she reflected, “but 
it will be a fortune to Bridget, and I don’t want to keep 
from Wayne any more than I can help.” 

Poor faithful wife! poor unhappy, loving Aurora! — but, 
then, she was a woman. 

Carter boldly returned to his studio. Andrew, the butler, 
informed Aurora and her mother that he was there. 

Mrs. Weyland sprang to her feet. “Throw him out, 
Andrew, throw — ” 

“Ma! Respect yourself! You are speaking before the 
servants! Andrew, please retire. — Ma!” Aurora was 
whispering. “You are not to know anything, though you 
have guessed the truth. I cannot see Wayne now. Dare 
I trust you to go to him ? ” 

“Yes, indeed,” said her mother eagerly, and she turned 
to leave, but Aurora detained her. 

“ Mind, ma, my happiness is in your hands. Weigh your 
words well!” 

Mrs Weyland rustled into the studio with as much grace 
as one could be expected to have after so long and gay a 
career in society. She smiled a fat smile at her affectionate 
son-in-law. 

“Ah!” she ejaculated, folding her pudgy hands on her 
stomach, “contemplating your masterpiece, son Wayne.” 
There w^§ ^ note of tender affection in her voice. Diamond 

i . . . , - 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


57 


cut diamond; the mother-in-law against the son-in-law. 
Mrs. Weyland had not been circling in society so many 
years for nothing. 

‘‘Well, it is pretty, aye, beautiful. That chambermaid 
posed for it, eh? A handsome girl, and you have done 
her justice.” 

He was flattered, and showed it. 

“I hope, Wayne, you will stay home for luncheon to-mor- 
row ; the house is so lonely without a man here but the ser- 
vants. Ah,” she sighed a hugh sigh that ruffled her broad, 
placid bosom, “when I am gone, and I cannot live twenty 
years more, you will make an august master here.” 

She again leveled her lorgnette at “The Miner’s Wife.” 

“By the way, one of these days I shall ask you to paint 
your mother-in-law, if such an artist as Wayne Carter will 
stoop to work so small and with so little poetry in it.” 

She chuckled when she had left him. 

Aurora in a few days fell very ill. She had always been 
delicate, and the sad news of her approaching death was 
soon broken to her mother. That estimable lady wept 
for full five minutes, and then made a pilgrimage to her 
daughter’s desk. Her face was very bright after she had 
gone into the kitchen and thrown a piece of paper upon the 
live coals. Forthwith did she summon her trusty old 
lawyer, Mr. Price, who loved money as he did his own 
soul, and even better. They were long in conference. 

Poor Aurora, after sending for her husband and telling 
him that she was leaving the world with his image on her 
heart, died. When Mrs. Weyland entered the death cham- 
ber, a minute after her daughter’s soul had departed, there 
was a satisfied smile on Wayne Carter’s face; surely Au- 
rora’s fortune was his. He might have noticed a triumphant 
look on his mother-in-law’s countenance, had he glanced 
at her. 

Aurora’s grand funeral over, her will was read. All her 
fortune was left to her dear mother, Mrs. Clarence Wey- 
land j not one dollar for her husband, Wayne Carter, He 


BRIDGET 


58 

glanced sharply at his mother-in-law, but she was buried in 
grief, and a black-bordered handkerchief concealed her fair 
old face. All the women sympathized with her and men- 
tally complimented her on her taste; her gown was mag- 
nificent and fitted to perfection, and black always looked 
well on her. Dear Aurora, they said, how lonely her 
mother would be without her! Society, too, had lost by 
her demise, she was such a sweet girl. But Mrs. Weyland 
was laughing in her sleeve at the toadies round about her. 

That night Wayne Carter spent an hour or so in cursing 
his wife and tearing every portrait that he had of her to 
bits. 

“But I will seek out Bridget,” he said with determination. 
“‘The Miner’s Wife’ will certainly add no few laurels 
to my at present scanty wreath. When my picture has 
brought me fame, I shall go to Bridget. I shall win and 
wed her. She will help me to increase my fame.” 

He dreamed bright dreams that night. He saw Jacob’s 
ladder and himself high up on the golden rungs. A single 
angel, with streaming hair, led him on; that was Bridget. 

“Andrew,” said Mrs. Weyland to her butler next morn- 
ing, “you will please tell Mr. Carter that I intend to close 
up the house as soon as possible and go to Europe, alone.” 

“That will humiliate him,” she reflected, “to receive 
his walking papers from the hand of a servant.” 

When Andrew had broken to him the pleasant news, 
Wayne Carter did some more cursing and devoted his 
loving mother-in-law to the forty furies. Well, there was 
nothing to do but make the best of things. He strode to 
his. studio, only to find one of the windows wide open, and 
the bright sun pouring in. He looked at the bronze frame 
on the easel, and raged like a baited bull. He tore at his 
hair and mustache, he overturned paints; he threw brushes 
into the corners and out of the window, he broke easels, 
he drove his fist through an incipient sunset. 

“Curses on me for an idiot!” he groaned. “I was for- 
ever^showing mj gem to every Tom, Dick ^nd Harry, and 


ok WHAt^S m A iSTAME^ 


SO 

continually crowing; no wonder it has been stolen.’’ He 
looked through the window and saw a ladder leaning against 
the house. ^‘But I will search till I die for my ‘Miner’s 
Wife;’ I will wear myself out, body and soul, till I find it.” 

Search till you die, dear artist. Wear out your body 
searching, wear out your soul. Ruin your eyes looking 
into galleries, private and public; but never will you find 
your “Miner’s Wife.” While you, in your dreams last 
night, climbed the golden ladder of fame, led on by a dark- 
haired angel, another angel, in a cloak, with her white 
hair streaming, stole into your studio, armed with a sharp 
knife. 

It is well for her that you did not see her cut the picture 
from its frame, and glide down into the kitchen, where 
there was a blazing fire. It is well you did not see your 
“Miner’s Wife” slashed into strips, and made a holocaust 
to appease the wrath of an old woman. Yes, dear artist, 
search on, search on; renew your searches from day to day; 
but there is no art gallery knows so much about your 
“Miner’s Wife,” as does Mrs. Weyland’s kitchen range. 


CHAPTER XI. 


FRED’S NINE FRIDAYS. 

“God’s ways are queer, I tell you,” said old Mrs. Finley, 
puckering up her toothless mouth thoughtfully. “To 
think of that poor Nellie Purcel dying and leaving them 
six lovely babies, for they’re nothing else but babies; like 
steps of stairs, the crowd of them.” 

“It’s not Him as is queer, or His ways neither, Mrs. 
Finley,” replied Mrs. Nolan, “but it’s us is dumb and can’t 
see how mighty good He is in taking her from this hard ole 
world. Poor Nellie, she done her share of hard work 
before she went to heaven and to heaven she went, if ever 
any one did. But Christy Purcel’s not going to break up 
his house, is he?” 

“No; his sister Bridget’s come home from the city, and 
they say she’s going to stay with Christy. Lots and lots 
of work for her, but Bridget’s strong and she ain’t no 
shirker.” 

“That she’s not. She’s a daughter for a mother to be 
proud of. Why, I remember the bags and bags of coal 
she used to pick and haul in a wheel-barra.” 

“But, Mrs. Nolan, I can’t help from wondering. Poor 
Nellie Purcel’s dead, and that scamp of a Barney Green is 
left a-living, and him drinking and carousing and swearing 
the full of the house and neglecting his wife and two little 
lads. Fine boys them are, Mrs. Nolan, little John and 
Freddie Green. Now, why don’t God take sich a divil 
of a man, and leave sich an angel of a woman ? ” 

“ ’Tain’t none of our business what God does, Mrs. Fin- 
ley. We’re His, and He knows best.” 


OR WHAT^S IN A NAME? 


6i 

Yes, Bridget Purcel was home at Mine Run again. Her 
brother’s wife was dead — a patient woman whom every- 
body loved. The little town was dear to her heart, though 
it had sad memories for her. Everybody noticed a great 
change in Bridget Purcel when she returned from the city, 
and all attributed her mild sadness to the death of her dear 
ones. Her brother Christy often remarked in silence how 
eagerly Bridget conned the city paper, but he thought 
she was following the gay career of one of her former mis- 
tresses. He never dreamed that she was hoping to find 
some trace of Belle — Belle whose name was never spoken. 

Bridget was truly a mother to her brother’s children. 
The little ones clung to “Aunt Biddy” and adored her. 
Her life was one round of monotonous duties, but she never 
complained; she found her consolation in prayer, in the 
children, and in the consciousness of duty well done. She 
loved to teach the younger ones their prayers, loved to hear 
their voices say, “Hallowed be Thy name.” She always 
asked the children to say an extra “Hail Mary” for one who 
was adrift on the world’s mighty ocean only God knew 
where. 

The great coal-breaker whistles were filling the air with 
a din that was almost unbearable. The machinery of the 
large Rhoads Colliery had been set in motion, and its 
stiff wheels and cogs were screeching with an ear-splitting 
noise. Clouds of fine coal dust were beginning to arise, 
and lumps of coal were gliding down the smooth chutes. 
As the coal struck the loose pieces of sheet-iron in some of 
the chutes, they resounded harshly. The hugh, round 
screens were groaning, as if they dreaded the working-day 
which was just beginning. 

A long, irregular line of breaker-boys came surging up 
the rickety flight of dust-covered steps. Their dinted tin 
lunch-pails and bottles bumped together, and gave forth 
a rather musical sound. Some of the boys whistled popu- 
lar airs, or hummed songs; others indulged in loud con- 
versation, 


62 


BRIDGET, 

In five minutes, everybody is at his working-place, and 
the day’s labor is begun. How patient the little slate - 
pickers look, as they throw out the slate and “bony” coal 
from the good product! How often their hard little hands 
are bruised and cut by the sharp pieces of coal! The dust 
rises in heavy clouds, and almost conceals their little faces; 
it pours out through the open windows, and darkens the 
sunlight. 

Outside, the birds are singing in the woods about the 
colliery; the sun is shining on the leafy trees and green 
grass; the purling brooks gurgle among the old rocks. 
*How different is the working day of the breaker-boy from 
ours! He seems to have left the gladsome earth and 
penetrated to Pluto’s regions. 

Two little slate-pickers, the Green brothers, one about 
fifteen years of age, the other just turned thirteen, are 
sitting side-by-side working with great vim. 

“Hurry up, Fred,” says the older of the two; “the chute’s 
almost clear. Sock the coal down! You need a rest.” 

When the chute is entirely empty, all the slate-pickers 
leave their places, except the two Green boys. 

“Put in the chute-board, Fred,” says John Green, “and 
we’ll have a talk. Say, Fred, I notice you’re been kinder 
quiet ever since breakfast; you’d rather not work to-day, 
eh?” Fred Green nods. “I’m sorry meself for our sake 
that we are working. Why couldn’t we work yesterday? 
Three days’ work this week, Fred — Monday, Wednesday, 
and Friday; think of it! You wanted to go to Holy Com- 
munion this morning, didn’t you, Fred?” 

The older boy looks kindly at his brother’s downcast 
face, at the grey eyes, with their vacant stare. 

“Yes, John,” Fred breaks forth, “I did want to receive 
Holy Communion to-day. This is the First Friday, you 
know, and to-day’s communion would’ve made me Nine 
Fridays. I’ve been making me novena for ninje whole 
months, and now it’s broke.” 

“Don’t mind, Fred; you kin start over again. If you’re 


OR WHAT»S IN A NAME^ 63 

making the novena for a happy death, you’ve lots of time; 
you’re not going to die for a long time yet.” 

‘‘I wasn’t making it for a happy death, John; I was 
makin’ it for pap. You know,” and gloom settled down 
on the small face, “how bad he’s been for so long — drink- 
ing, and not going to Mass, and not giving mam any money. 
I know the novena of the Nine Fridays to the Sacred Heart’d 
make him better.” 

“Well, Fred, you’d a right to stay at home to-day, and 
go to Holy Communion.” 

“I did intend to stay home to-day, John, and I went to 
confession last night. When I came home from the church, 
I went upstairs quiet, and in passing by mam’s room, I 
heard her crying. Her door was half open, and I listened 
for a little while. Mother of God,’ she said, ‘help me; 
I haven’t a cent in the world. Mother Mary, intercede 
for me husband.’ I found out afterwards, John, that the 
storekeeper had said he wanted her to pay something on 
her back bill, else he’d have to stop the store on her. How 
could I stay home from work to-day, and her needing mo ley, 
and the colleries working the broken time. But, oh, I 
did want to finish the Nine Fridays for pap.” 

Here the conversation is cut short; the screen is full of 
coal again, and now the chute is rapidly “blocking up.’ 
Soon all the grimy little faces are bent over their “tables” 
and are “socking” out the slate. One small chap is eating 
a piece of bread with his left hand, while with the right he 
pushes down the stream of coal. The noise is deafening; 
the hoarse grinding of the machinery, the “clink — clink” 
of the elevator-buckets, the rattling and rushing of the 
coal, and the loud, coarse voice of the boss, as he shouts 
orders to the boys. 

The great whistle shrieks. Twelve o’clock! — the din- 
ner half-hour has come! 

All the boys with one accord, scamper from their places, 
.with their dinner-pails, and rush down the steps into the 
open air. Some loll on the grass under the trees, and eat 


64 


BRIDGET, 


their dinner languidly; others are engaged in earnest con- 
versation, and do not open their dinner-buckets — which, 
by the way, are empty, the boys having eaten their lunch 
while working. Some black, dusty little forms are perched 
on the high boughs of the trees, and are singing as gaily 
as the birds; others of the boys have gone back into the 
breaker, and are playing “tag.” One can, ever and anon, 
catch glimpses of their figures, as they flit by the open 
windows. 

“Come, John,” says Fred Green, “the five-minute 
whistle’s blew, and the machinery’s going pretty lively.” 
He twists the rope of his tin coffee-bottle about his can. 
“We’ll take that short cut up by the engine-house.” 

Fred, followed by John, runs rapidly towards a rear 
door of the breaker. They mount a short flight of creak- 
ing steps together. 

“Say, Fred, I don’t like to go this way, it’s so dangerous; 
we have to duck under so many of those big belt-wheels. 
But, hurry, there goes the whistle 1” 

The machinery was now running at full speed. Fred, 
in his haste, slipped on a piece of treacherous coal, just 
as he was about to stoop and pass under a huge, flying 
wheel. He lost his balance, and, with a faint cry, fell 
before John had time to reach his side. Fred threw out 
one hand to save himself, and, in his excitement, grasped 
the thick belt. In a second, he was whirled round, and flung 
from the wheel’s mighty grasp into another wheel, whence 
he fell to the ground below — a bleeding, moaning little 
figure. 

As soon as John’s horrified eyes beheld his brother caught 
in the wheel, he instinctively clutched a bell-wire which 
ran near the steps, and gave it a mighty pull. When the 
machinery stopped, and one of the workmen came to John’s 
side, he was holding his brother’s bruised form in his arms, 
and was whispering soft words into his ears. 

The two boys were borne home together in the dark, 
ambulance. Fred’s lips were moving in prayer; his eyes 


Ok WHAT^S IN' A NAME? 


65 

were closed, and his forehead, where the coal dust had 
not settled so heavily, gleamed like marble. John was 
pale, too, and his lips were moving. 

Mrs. Green shrieked when she saw the mine ambulance 
and rushed to her boys. She hurriedly led the way to a 
neat, but poor bedroom; and Fred’s bleeding head was 
laid on a worn, snowy pillow. 

John was now gone for the parish priest; and Mrs. 
Green, with tears trickling down her cheeks and falling on 
her faded calico gown, was making preparations for the 
coming Guest. The tidy table was soon prepared; and, 
with a great sob that came from her mother’s heart, she 
fell on the bed beside her injured son, her hard hands 
locked together. 

Bridget Purcel was washing the blood and coal-dust from 
Fred’s thin face, as Mrs. Nolan removed his shoes. 

John entered breathless. 

“The priest, mam,” he said. 

Mrs. Green hurried to the bedroom door just as it opened 
and the priest entered, preceded by Mrs. Finley, carrying 
a lighted candle. Barney Green, the father could not be 
found. 

After Fred had made his confession, he received his Lord, 
with a face as radiant as an angel’s. 

His mother crushed back a sob, as she looked at the 
innocent countenance. “Thy will be done, Lord,” she 
whispered, “if he must die.” 

The priest had scarcely administered the last sacraments, 
when a doctor and Barney Green came into the room. The 
latter, who had evidently been drinking, with one stride 
reached the bed-side. 

“Fred!” 

“Pap!” the rough little hands were clasped about the 
father’s neck, “pap, how glad I am that you’ve come!” 

Great sobs were shaking the man’s broad chest; he saw 
death in his boy’s face. The doctor then examined the 
patient little sufferer, and shook his head. 


66 SRIDGfiT, 

John was bending over Fred on the left, the parent? on 
the right. 

“John, I’ve made me Nine Fridays,” with an angelic 
smile. “Pap,” a little hand was placed on the father’s 
head, and two eyes, bright as stars, looked into his face, 
“pap, promise that you won’t drink any more.” 

“Fred! Fred, O Fred, my little one! are you really 
dying?” Mrs. Green broke forth. 

Fred’s eyes shot a look of love into hers. 

“Fred,” the father was calmer now, “I’ve drunk my 
last glass.” 

The priest now commenced the last, sad, yet consoling 
office; Bridget Purcel, Mrs. Nolan and Mrs. Finley had 
sunk on their knees, tears shining in their dilated eyes; 
the physician, with his arms folded, was standing near the 
door, biting his lips to repress his emotion; the mother 
had fallen, face downward, on the floor; tears were stream- 
ing down John’s grimy cheeks, as Barney Green caught 
Fred in his arms. Fred whispered in his father’s ear; he 
pressed his lips to Fred’s cheek. 

A little sigh, — and Fred’s clinging hands slipped from 
his father’s neck. 



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BRIDGET SPENT A LONELY HOUR BESIDE THE GRAVES. 


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CHAPTER XII. 


THE SOCIAL STEPPING-STONE. 

Bridget was in the city again; she had grown to love 
it. Before her departure from Mine Run, she paid a fare- 
well visit to the graves of her parents and brother, and spent 
a lonely — only God knows how lonely, an hour beside 
them. 

*‘What are your designs in my regard, O Lord?’^ she 
whispered, as she closed the cemetery gate and cast a last 
sad look at the green mounds. “You have taken from 
me almost all, and. Lord, I am weak, so weak. Uphold 
me, or I shall sink down never to rise again; I find my 
cross so heavy.” 

Her brother Christy had married again. His wedding 
festivities over, she kissed him good-bye. She could not 
be dependent on him, he had a large family; she must 
earn her own living. 

Farewell again to dear Mine Run. Farewell to those 
coal-dusty roads along which she had walked many an 
evening with her father. Farewell to the little church, 
St. Josephus. Dear St. Joseph’s! She knew where her 
father used to sit in church; and sometimes when she 
heard Mass and looked at that pew, her vision blurred with 
tears, she could see him there still, saying his beads with 
his simple Irish faith, bending down at the consecration, 
and dealing his unoffending breast terrific blows. Some- 
times when the spotless Host was raised up for adoration, 
she felt that her father must be present. 

And poor Larry! When the Holy Name Society received 
in a body, Bridget could scarcely control herself. She knew 
how dovQutedly her brother had been wont to approach 


68 


BRIDGET 


the holy table. Going to the altar-rail, his rough hands 
piously folded, his innocent, boyish face lit up with some- 
thing like a smile — that picture was engraven with a golden 
pen on Bridget's memory. 

Well, she was in the city again, and was glad to be there. 

Bridget was a trained nurse now. How happy she was, 
and how short seemed the days; those busy days, so full 
of duties, so full of the little kindnesses that mean much to 
the sick and suffering! She had started in at the hospital as 
a servant girl, but through the affection borne her by Sister 
Isabella, one of the nurses, Bridget was at length promoted 
to her present position. She had always tried to be ser- 
viceable, but only now did she begin to feel that she was of 
any use to the world. 

“Bridget, would you mind going out to nurse?” the 
Superioress, Mother Eulalia, asked one afternoon. Bridget 
was not unwilling. “I hope you will find it pleasant,” 
she said as Bridget put on her hat. 

Bridget was driven to a brown-stone mansion, and found 
that her patient was a young man, a widow’s only son, 
Warren Steele. 

“Mother wanted to nurse me, Miss Purcel,” he said to 
Bridget that night, when she was sitting with him; “but 
I did not let her, she would wear herself out.” 

Bridget liked his face, a handsome, manly one. He did 
not improve as the days went on, and Bridget gave him 
her undivided attention. 

Mrs. Steele was a short, stout old lady, with a broad, 
wrinkled, brown face and thin iron-gray hair; she was not 
at all attractive. She always reminded Bridget of an old 
picture of Rebecca at the well, which her mother had had 
— a picture more noted for age than beauty. Bridget 
soon learned to be very fond of Mrs. Steele, and the feeling 
was reciprocated. 

“So you are from the country?” queried Mrs. Steele, 
smiling at Bridget. “You have the bloom of the fields 
in your cheeks,” 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 69 

Bridget hastened to explain that she was from the coal 
regions, not the farming districts. 

“That is my way,” said the old lady good-humoredly, 
“to think every fresh, blooming, pretty girl is just off a farm 
I was raised in the farming country, but the air never helped 
my beauty. How could it? — I hadn’t the features,” she 
added ingenuously. 

The old lady loved to talk about the past. One night 
w^hen her son was sleeping better than usual and she was 
sitting with Bridget, she said: 

“Dearie, perhaps you will marry soon?” 

Bridget laughed. “I must be getting to look old; you 
are the second one who said that to me.” And she thought 
of Mrs. Nolan. 

“You know better than that,” retorted the old lady. 

She was seated in a rocker, and was feasting her eyes on 
the young Venus before her. Now a faint shadow came 
into the sad, patient old eyes, and settled on the faded face. 

“Well, child, I trust that when you do marry, your life 
will be happier than mine was. There are so few to whom 
I can talk about my troubles, that it is pleasant to have you 
here. It is just the kind of a night to talk in a melancholy 
strain.” 

For outside all was darkness, and the rain was pouring 
down. 

“I am garrulous, with the garrulity of old age, but, having 
so patient a listener, I hope I shall not weary you with my 
talk. 

“To few have I ever told the story of my unfortunate 
marriage and my long years of unhappiness. But there 
is something so winning about you, child, that I must let 
my old tongue rattle on. 

“It was my misfortune never to be pretty or attractive; 
and I became the wife of a man who seemed to admire 
only beautjful and brilliant women. I was twenty years 
old when I married Paxton Steele. I was a wealthy farmer’s 
only daughter and my father’s pride. The happiest mo- 
ments of my life were passed beneath the roof of my old 


70 


BRIDGET, 


home in the village of Marlin. My thoughts often steal 
back to the dear old place, and, in fancy, I am with my 
devoted parents under the gnarled old apple-tree that 
stood by the door. The sweet breeze from the meadows 
then comes to my nostrils; the drowsy hum of the bees, 
the music of the forest birds, greet my ears. I was far from 
being an ignorant girl, Bridget. I had been graduated 
from the country school, and had gone through an excellent 
academy, but I was not brilliant. I was a miserable con- 
versationalist; often I experienced those ‘dreadful pauses’ 
that come when conversation flags. I was always afflicted 
with ‘nerves.’ When called to play on the piano before 
visitors, I would prove a failure, though I was a fairly good 
performer. 

“A Mr. Steele bought a farm near ours, and came to live 
at Marlin. He was quite a poor man. I learned that 
he had in a university a son who would soon complete a 
course of medicine. Summer had set in when Dr. Paxton 
Steele came to his new home in Marlin. He was a hand- 
some man of five-and-twenty. 

“All the country girls fell in love with the new doctor, all 
the swains were jealous of him. I met him a short while 
after his home-coming. It was at a picnic dance, where 
Dr. Steele was the lion of the occasion. He danced with 
me, and paid me, poor plain me, so much attention that 
my embarrassment was equaled only by the envy of the 
other girls. 

“In a month he had asked my father for my hand, and 
we were quietly married in the ivy-wreathed village church. 
What a proud, happy bride I was as I leaned on the strong 
arm of my gallant young husband; and how fair the world 
seemed then! 

“After the birth of my first child, my Ellen, who was as. 
homely as her mother, my husband and I came to live here 
in the city. Both my parents died the following year, and 
I should have felt quite alone in the world had it not been 
for Paxton and my little Nellie. My husband had done 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


71 


well in choosing so wealthy a wife,- -I had been the richest 
girl in Marlin — for, in the beginning, he was not successful 
in his practice. 

“Another little girl came to bless our home, a beautiful 
child, a miniature of her father. We called her Dallas. 
Then, years after, came my Warren. 

“As time rolled by my husband rose in popularity and 
began to amass somewhat of a fortune by his labors. He 
became the leading physician of a large hospital. My 
fortune, however, had been the foundation of his success. 
He was courted and sought by society; he was so witty, 
so handsome, so much of the Beau Brummel. 

“Dr. Steele, in a few years, was a common name in the 
society columns of the newspapers. Mrs. Steele’s name, 
however, seldom appeared there; I did not Take’ well 
in society; I was not brilliant, and I was ugly. 

“In the first happy years of our married life, my husband 
was kind to me and showed me all the little attentions due 
a wife. Later, however, when he had become the well-known 
Dr. Steele, I learned, to my mortification, that he was 
ashamed of me, the girl he had taken from her peaceful home; 
of me, the wife of his bosom, the mother of his children. 
He wanted a wife who could keep pace with him on the 
road of popularity; he felt that the splendor of his fortune 
was dimmed by my lack of beauty and gentility. The treat- 
ment I received at his hands led me to think that he had 
never loved me, and had married me only for my fortune, 
that he had turned his eyes from my homeliness, and had 
fixed them only on the gold in my possession. Ah, kind 
heaven, the heartache! 

“But his name was connected with no other woman’s 
till he met Elva Farrow. She was a social queen and very 
delicate. The visits of my husband to her, which were at 
first professional, soon became social. His name was 
linked with hers; he was known as her lover. 

“He lost all shame; she, I dare say, never had any. He 
went to church with her when he had refused to go with 
me. He would be away from my side for a month. 


72 


BRIDGET, 


“ One evening I recall too well. Paxton and Miss Farrow 
had been spending several weeks together at a summer 
resort. He returned and hardly noticed his wife, so un- 
concerned was he. 

“‘Why don’t you kiss mamma?’ asked my Warren. 
‘You have been gone so long, papa.’ 

“My husband stooped down with a shamed flush, and 
pressed a sheepish kiss on my forehead. And even that 
was welcome; oh, I loved him so! 

“At length Elva Farrow died, and the scandal ceased. 

“Our daughters grew to womanhood. Our son became 
more and more like his father in appearance. The inter- 
vening* years had served only to widen the awful gulf be- 
tween my husband and me. Often I cried out to God to 
let me die, to remove so cumbersome a burden from him. 
Ellen was like me in every respect; she had my features, 
my mannerisms. Not so Dallas. She was as handsome 
a girl as I ever saw, and had the airs of a princess. Ellen 
and Warren were the only consolation of my life; their 
love took much of the bitterness from my draught. 

“Dallas seldom gave me more attention than her father 
did. She would have preferred a haughty, handsome 
mother like the ladies she knew. One thing endeared her 
to me; she was kind and loving to Ellen. 

“Both girls made their debut in society. Dallas, as I 
had expected, created a sensation by her beauty and majesty 
of mien; Ellen — well, she was too much like her mother 
to be a success. 

“I remember one evening Ellen stole to my side, and, 
throwing herself on my bosom, burst into tears. ‘Mamma,’ 
she sobbed, ‘I don’t like society, oh, I am so miserable! 
Papa doesn’t care at all for me, Dallas takes all his love. 
Perhaps’ — oh, how my own heart ached as I listened! — 
‘ if I were beautiful like Dallas he would love me. ’ 

“I feel that my heart would have broken that night had 
it not been for the consolation of prayer. I devoured the 
soul-stirring pages of Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ. 


ok whAt^s in a name? 


^3 


“So the years passed away. Every day increased my 
misery. I really think that my husband at length grew 
to hate me. 

“When on his deathbed, his last words were for Dallas, 
his last smile, his last regrets for her; he almost ignored 
my poor Ellen, and Warren, and me. May God forgive 
him! 

“I have outlived Ellen. She died on my bosom. She 
had not been married. Dallas wedded a wealthy banker 
and is in England. I hear often of her, but seldom from 
her. I am happier now than I was during my husband’s 
lifetime. Warren is a great comfort to me. I should be 
supremely happy, were his health better.” 

Bridget pressed a sympathizing kiss on the soft old cheek, 
and turned her head away, that Mrs. Steele might not see 
the tears in her eyes. Poor mother, Warren was all she 
had! 


CHAPTER XIII. 


{ 

AN UNHAPPY LOVE. 

On the following morning, when everything was cool 
and fresh and green after the autumn rain, Mrs. Steele 
and Bridget sat together near the open window in the sick- 
room. The patient was asleep. 

“Bridget,” — the nurse had long ceased to be Miss Purcel 
with her and her son, — “the doctor has told me that my 
son is growing worse. Do you think disappointment has 
anything to do with his condition?” 

“Perhaps-; for indeed he seems much depressed.” 

“Come.” 

Mrs. Steele led the way to the parlor and Bridget followed. 
The widow stopped before a large picture on an easel and 
drew aside the window curtains. The sunlight poured 
upon the pictured face and played about the fair hair and 
tantalizing mouth; a radiantly beautiful woman, decollete, 
jewels glittering in her ears and on her throat and bosom. 
The blue eyes looked brightly into Bridget’s; it seemed 
with a gleam of recognition in their depths, for the face 
was Belle’s. Mrs. Steele regarded the picture so intently 
that Bridget had ample time to recover from her confusion. 

“A handsome face indeed,” she faltered. “I should 
love such a woman.” 

“A lovely woman indeed, Bridget. Where Warren got 
this picture I cannot say, but he worships her. I have known 
him to sit long before this picture, studying the face. Her 
name is Lora Davenport. I have never seen her, and I 
know very little about her. But I am aware that my son 
loves her madly; and if he dies, I cannot help but connect 
her in some way with his death. If he had more energy, 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? fs 

he would get well, I am sure; and energy he would have, 
were it not for her. But perhaps I am unjust.” 

After that Bridget paid more attention to Warren Steele. 

“I have seen a beautiful woman’s portrait in the parlor,” 
she said to him, “and I am very much interested in the 
sweet face. May I ask who she is?” 

“Certainly, Bridget. She is Lora Davenport and I love 
her. She loves me too, yet she refused to become my 
wife; when I asked her. ‘I cannot,’ she said. That was 
all. There is some secret in her life. Understand me, 

e is all that is good and true and pure. She has a reason 
for not letting me know of her relatives, and I have never 
asked her about them.” 

He turned his bright eyes on Bridget, and she was pleased 
with the innocence she saw in them; Mrs. Steele had trained 
her son carefully. 

“She has always met me by stealth, but I ought to say 
that she has met me very seldom. I haven’t her address 
to send her a note. If she knew that I am sick, she would 
be here. When I was with her last, somehow she made 
me feel that we should not meet again. She hung on my 
arm and wept and clung to me when we were parting. 
‘Trust and love me if we never meet again,’ she whispered; 
‘your trust and your love are so sweet to me.’ And before 
I could remonstrate with her, she was gone. That was 
weeks ago. I have not seen her or heard from her since.” 

Bridget asked the physician one night if there was any 
change in the patient, and he replied that Warren Steele 
would not see the day dawn. Just as the clock was strik- 
ing twelve, Bridget noticed a grayish tint steal over his 
face, and she knew well what that meant. She whispered 
to his mother, Mrs. Steele took him in her arms, and there 
died Belle’s lover. 

“I shall not long survive him,” said the mother calmly. 
Nor did she. 

Bridget decided to be present at the funeral; she felt 
that Belle would be there, for all the papers contained the 


76 


BRIDGET 


account of Warren Steele’s death. She would veil hei*- 
self that Belle might not know her. Oh, for one glance 
at that dear face! 


CHAPTER XIV. 


SISTER ISABELLA’S LOVE. 

Mary Breen was no longer Sister Mary the postulant, 
she was now Sister Isabella, the novice. She wore the 
white veil, but she had as yet made no vows. She was 
in a hospital, and she loved the nursing. Where the days 
went to. Sister Isabella could never tell; so happy was 
she. She was an apt nurse, and the superioress regarded 
her with a proudly maternal eye. The patients idolized 
Sister Isabella; she was to them “like a ray of the sun on 
the walls of a prison.” 

Mother Eulalia and Sister Isabella were now looking, 
with pity in their eyes, at the blood-stained forehead of an 
unconscious man, as the physicians consulted together. 

“Very little hope for him, poor fellow,” said the chief 
doctor. “Beaten about the head, and left on the ground 
to die. A man of wealth and family too, with a fair, young 
wife.” 

Sister Isabella’s big blue eyes, full of pain and horror, 
glanced into the face of her superioress. 

“Then if he dies, there will be another murderer,” she 
whispered. “And if that unfortunate one has a mother, 
God help her poor gray hairs. What did you say his name 
is. Mother? Albert Brady?” 

“Mr. Renshaw is your patient. Sister Isabella,” said 
Mother Eulalia. “If you fail to save him, no one could. 
But why are you so abstracted?” 

Sister Isabella was staring at the handsome face of the 
patient. Now she raised her big eyes and met those of the 
superioress. The young Sister’s lips were white and 
drawn, as she said in a strange voice: 

“Oh, if he should die!’’ 


78 


BRIDGET, 


“God bless her innocent soul,” said the superioress, as 
she glided down the corridor, leaving Sister Isabella alone, 
“how her dear little face paled when I told her of the crime! 
Sweet child, she will be as simple when she leaves the world 
as she was when she came into it.” 

Sister Isabella took great interest in all her patients, but 
in none more than in Norton Renshaw. She constantly 
hovered, like a guardian angel, about his cot. His life 
hung by a thread which every moment threatened to snap. 
She prayed, she fought with death, she wore herself out in 
her watchfulness, and her skill and faithfulness conquered. 
Norton Renshaw was slowly improving. 

A slender woman, with golden hair and a dimpled face, 
sat by his side, when he opened his eyes after dreary days 
of darkness. He recognized her. “You, Anna!” His 
wife’s lips pressed his. Then he became conscious of 
another form near his bed, a black-robed Sister. 

“I cannot say how glad I am that you are better, Mr. 
Renshaw,” she said, with a happy tear in her eye. She 
left the husband and wife together. 

The weeks went on. Norton Renshaw was quite strong 
again; and he looked very manly and handsome, as he 
sat up in bed, his head swathed in bandages. 

“How faithful and devoted she is!” he remarked to his 
wife, when Sister Isabella had left the room. “You your- 
self, dear, could not be kinder or more indefatigable. This 
Sister — Isabella you call her? — what a beautiful woman 
she is! A woman, I say; she is scarcely more than a girl; 
she has a girl’s delicate bloom in her cheeks.” 

“Indeed she has a face; and I dare say a figure too, 
if she only wore clothes to show it. That dress of hers is 
so much of a bag, yet she wears it gracefully. Horrors, 
I would be a fright in such a thing. And her hair gone too, 
awful to think of! What a furore she would create in 
society!” 

“I wonder if she ever loved, Anna?” 

Mrs. Renshaw looked shyly and inquiringly at her 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


79 

husband. “Was there any special reason why you asked 
that queston, Norton?” 

“No, you little goose; why should there be?” and he 
looked inquiringly at her. 

“Well, if I were not so certain that I have your love, and 
were inclined to be jealous, I should fear Sister Isabella. 
Whether she ever loved before or not, is no matter; she is 
in love now — with you. Yes, she loves you; no woman 
on earth, religious or lay, would so toil for a man unless 
she had some special reason for it; such as her love of him. 
Sister Isabella has literally torn you from the jaws of death. 
She has done more than her duty. O Norton, dear, we 
can never, never thank her enough. She was ever by your 
side. I have watched that earnest expression on her face, 
and that look of grief and anxiety in her lovely eyes. From 
Sunday morning till Saturday night, from Saturday night 
till Sunday morning, you were in her thoughts. And, oh, 
my dear,” the wife’s arms stole round his neck, “I am 
sorry for her.” 

When Sister Isabella returned with a lunch, he looked 
sharply at her face; very white it was to-day, he noticed. 

“You will soon leave us, Mr. Renshaw,” she said. “Your 
wife,” with a smile, “is anxious to have you at home again.” 
Then a shade of care came into the Sister’s mild blue eyes. 

“Yes, I want him to be strong at once, that he may send 
his would-be murderer to prison,” the wife made answer, 
and her soft face hardened. “Ugh, that Albert Brady! 
What if you had died, Norton, dear!” 

“I suppose, Mr. Renshaw, that the culprit will be sent 
to prison for years?” Sister Isabella’s sweet voice was 
husky, as she gazed at his handsome face. 

“Yes, indeed. Sister, and he deserves it. Crime great, 
sentence long, you know.” 

Sister Isabella had slipped to her knees by the cot, and 
was weeping hysterically. .^Mrs. Renshaw looked supercil- 
iously indignant; the Sister ought to have more self-control; 
why did she enter the convent, since she might have known 


8o BRtDGCT, 

she would fall in love ? But Renshaw’s heart swelled with 
pity for the bowed figure. 

. “ O Mr. Renshaw, if I have done anything for you during 
your stay here, and I have tried to do my best, grant me 
the boon I ask of you on my knees. Spare the culprit, 
he is my mother’s youngest brother, her only one, the only 
near relative she hasj wild and dissipated, but, oh, so dear 
to her and to me. God has given you back your life; give 
me my uncle’s liberty.” 

Mrs. Renshaw understood, and her heart overflowed 
with womanly feeling. She gathered the slender Sister 
to her bosom. 

“ You need not ask that favor of Norton in vain,” she 
said. 

“Your uncle will be set free. Sister Isabella; you saved 
my life; that is the least I can do for you; measure for 
measure; no word of testimony will I utter against him.” 

It was the shadowy hour of evening. She was in the 
reception room, a man sitting at her side. He was sobbing 
out his contrition and his resolutions for the future. Would 
he keep these resolutions? Sister Isabella’s face wore a 
sad little smile as she listened to them. 

“Uncle dear,” she whispered, “if in the future you need 
a friend, don’t fear to send word to me; mother charged 
me when I left Montgomery, to pray every day for you.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


FAREWELL TO THE CONVENT. 

The soft rain bad been falling for nearly an hour. Bridget 
glanced up from the stocking she was darning, and out 
through the window. The grass, sparkling with raindrops, 
and studded here and there with the lowly, much despised 
dandelion flower, resembled an immense green carpet. 
The fruit trees were drenched with rain, and the mellow 
fruits looked especially tempting with their pink-and-red 
sides bedewed. 

Sister Isabella, who sat near Bridget, was examining a 
worn coif. Both had been silent for the last few minutes 
listening to the sleep-inviting music of the rain, as their 
needles worked away. 

“You did not know, Bridget,” said Sister Isabella, “that 
we have an insane Sister here? She is the tall, solemn- 
faced, grand-looking woman that you have seen in Room 
H. She has been insane for something over eight years. 
She is like a child, not at all violent. She sometimes lies 
in her bed, and, when I enter her room, she will not eat. 
She says then that she is in Purgatory. At other times 
she thinks she is our superioress, and gently orders us to 
be regular in our visits to the Blessed Sacrament. ‘The 
Lord of this house must not be left alone,’ she will say. 
My heart aches every time I see her. She is quite sick 
to-day, so sick that the doctors have little hope for her 
recovery. Sister Antoninus is waiting on her. The name 
of the insane Sister is Elizabeth. Pray for her often, Bridget ; 
I do not want her to die without regaining her reason.” 

After Mass next morning. Sister Isabella came to Bridget. 
“Oh, Bridget,” she said, “poor Sister Elizabeth passed 


82 


* BRIDGET, 


away at daybreak.” Sister Isabella saw a question in the 
nurse’s eyes. “No, thank God, she was not insane when 
she died. Her reason returned to her just an hour before 
God took her from this world. Oh, what a beautiful death 
it was! She was really the Sister of Mercy then. She 
looked like a lovely saint. When she saw me weeping she 
mildly rebuked me. ‘Why do you weep, Sister?’ she said. 
‘I am not afraid to die. Why should I, Sister Mary Eliza- 
beth, fear to go before God ? Am I not a Sister of Mercy, 
a spouse of Christ?’ She then began to speak as if our 
blessed Lord Himself were in the room. ‘ Mother McAuley 
and the other Sisters of Mercy in heaven, are coming to 
meet me, dear Sisters,’ she said. ‘Oh, the joy!’ She 
breathed out her soul with the name of Jesus on her lips. 
After almost nine years of madness"she died as sane as we 
are. I shall never forget that'^death, but I am glad that 
she died as she did, yet I ^cannot help weeping when I think 
of her sad life. What a terrible thing insanity is! ” 

Poor Sister Isabella, Bridget often wept for her after- 
wards. On that very morning was enacted the bitter 
tragedy of the young novice’s own happy life. 

The young, beautiful novice had one severe"^ cross; she 
was troubled with violent headaches, which the doctors 
could not satisfactorily explain. The explanation came; 
a terrible, a crushing explanation both to the superioress 
and Sister Isabella. 

The young novice was summoned to the Mother’s room. 
Sister Isabella saw that the nun’s eyes were brimful of 
tears, and that her features were working in agony. 

“Sit down, dear — there by the window, where you will 
get the full benefit of the fresh air.” 

Sister Isabella sank into the chair, and looked through 
the open window into the garden. The soft, delicate breeze 
brought to her nostrils the perfume and sweetness of the 
flowers below. What could have happened? Was her 
mother dead, or perhaps her father, or dear little Mattie? 
A nameless fear pressed on the young girl’s heart. Oh, 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 83 

why did not the superioress relieve her mind? A pause 
ensued; then the nun spoke: 

“Sister Isabella, did you ever see your father?” 

“No, Mother; Mr. Breen is the only father I have ever 
known. My father, Richard Horan, died when I was 
but a day old, and two years later my mother married 
Mr. Breen, who has always been a real father to me, and 
who loves me as much as he does his own child Mattie. 
But didn’t my mother tell you anything about that ? ” 

“She did. Sister, but I can’t say what made me think 
that perhaps you did not know it. Have you ever met any 
of your father’s relatives?” 

“I have never seen any of them.” She flushed slightly. 
“My mother’s first marriage was unfortunate — but perhaps 
she told you of it?” 

The religious said nothing; she wanted the novice to 
talk. God help the girl, her life would be ruined soon 
enough! 

“Richard Horan was fairly well-to-do, and had a college 
education. My mother was pretty and winning, a prototype 
of our Mattie. My father saw her, fell in love and mar- 
ried her. They were man and wife but a short time when 
he realized that he had made a mistake; she had no educa- 
tion, his relatives despised her; he grew ashamed of her 
and finally deserted her. He was killed in an accident the 
day after I was born. My mother received no word of 
his death till later.” 

“Sister, why did you come to the convent?” 

“Why, Mother?” — in surprise. “Because I felt that 
God wanted me here, because I desired to be a nun that 
I might save my soul by working for my neighbor.” 

“You came because you thought that God wanted you 
here; suppose He should not, what then?” 

A little silence before the faltering answer came: 

“Then — then I would— leave the convent and go where 
His will called me.” 

Every muscle in the superioress’ face was working with 


84 


BRIDGET, 


emotion. “Sister, suppose God should strike you blind, 
and you could not become a religious?” 

The quick-witted novice saw that the nun had sad news 
to communicate and was circumlocuting, but what the 
nature of the news was, she could not conjecture. 

“Mother, God’s will be done always. He is my Father; 
I am His child, and His will is, or should be, my law. He 
knows what is best for us all; we can do nothing better 
than to throw ourselves into His arms, and let Him bear 
us whithersoever He may. He has numbered the hairs 
of our heads. But you know all this; you have taught me; 
and these questions, why ask them? You are trying to 
spare me. Mother, indeed you are; tell me what the bad 
news is; I can bear it; I am strong.” 

The nun saw the young novice’s soul shining from her 
eyes; and w^hat a soul had that fragile girl! 

“Sister, I am obliged to send you home.” 

The superioress turned and looked away from the novice. 
She expected her to cry aloud or faint, but no sound came 
from the girl’s white lips. Her face was marble; then burst 
forth w'ild, incoherent words: 

“But why — w^hy? I have kept every rule — have always 
obeyed — have tried to preserve myself from every stain — 
have endeavored to be perfect?” 

The superioress took her spiritual daughter in her arms. 
“I know you have child, I know you have. Oh, Sister, 
Sister,” wnth a gush of tears, “I had tried to prepare you 
for a heard blow, but words are inadequate.” 

No tears from Sister Isabella; her grief was too great 
to allow of weeping. 

“The hardest blow has crashed upon, me. Mother; I 
should rather die than give up the convent.” 

“But there is another blow; oh. Sister, such a blow! 
Oh, that it should ever be my duty to cause such misery!” 

“I see. Mother, there is some reason for your action,” 
— with calmness; her heart seemed to have become ice. 
“Tell me at once what it is. If you keep me in suspense 



f 








OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 85 

for five minutes more, my heart will give away beneath the 
strain. Tell me all — all, terrible though it be.” 

“Your father’s brother, George Horan, went insane 
recently.” The Sister had delayed the direful news as 
long as she could, but now she thought it better to tell all 
the terrible truth in the fewest possible words. “Investi- 
gation proved that the insanity was hereditary, that his 
father had died insane. Our rules will not allow us- to 
keep you, dear.” 

The superioress surpressed a desire to flee from the sight 
of the novice’s grief. Oh, why did not the girl scream! 
Even that would have been a relief; but this awful silence! 

“And that explains my headaches! Oh, my God, my 
God, I may go mad too!” 

Sister Isabella was on her knees, now she lay like a broken 
lily upon the floor. The superioress never forgot the moans 
that came to her ears. Oh, if the girl would only weep, 
would only make the hospital ring with her cries! And 
her reason, would it not give way beneath the crushing 
force of this fearful blow? The Sister raised the lithesome 
form. There was no resistance; the novice might have 
been flung into a fiery furnace, so passive was she. 

“Come to the chapel, dear, come!” 

She led the stricken girl before the altar and left her there. 

God alone could console her, human aid was powerless 
in such a case. 

That never-to-be-forgotten morning dragged away. She 
was no longer Sister Isabella, she was Mary Breen 
again. She looked like a picture in her traveling costume. 
She wore a plain, little black hat with a thick veil, for her 
long, glossy tresses had been shorn before she received the 
habit of the Order. She had bidden the nuns good-bye. 
She was calm now, and there was resignation in her face. 

She paid a last visit to the chapel that was so dear to her. 
Perhaps she would never lay her eyes on it again she 
thought ; and she never did. Mother Eulalia knelt near the 
door, as Mary Breen prostrated herself before the altar. She 


86 


BRIDGET, 


lay there on her face for some time, so still she might have 
been a corpse. As the Apostles felt when the cloud had 
received their Lord out of their sight, so felt Mary Breen 
now. She went before our Lady’s statue where she had so 
often and with so light and fervent heart said her beads. 

“Come, Mother, I am strong now.” There was a sad 
little smile on Mary’s lips. “His divine will be done.” 

“Mary, God has some special design in your regard; 
there is a great work awaiting you in the world. What that 
work is, God alone knows. You may not find it till the 
world and I are separated, but find it you will.” 

Mary Breen thought of those words afterwards — when 
she had found her work. 

Oh, that short, but dreary drive from the hospital in the 
closed cab with the superioress! Neither of the two women 
could ever recall it afterwards without tears. Mary said 
no word, nor did the nun; their hearts were too full. 

Mary Breen, her veil down, stood with the superioress 
on the station platform. The girl looked back at the hos- 
pital; at its slated roof, from which the sun was glancing; 
at its open windows, through which she could see the Sisters 
moving about among the sick; at its terraces; at its spacious 
grounds with the flower beds. She felt a sinking at her 
heart; and she saw no more, for tears blinded her. Some- 
thing told her that she was taking her last look at the home 
wherein she had been so happy. 

The train had pulled into the station, and now stood 
wheezing like some aged, wild animal. 

“A-a-11 a-a-bo-ardl” in the musical and soothing voice 
of the conductor. 

Mary threw up her veil and turned, with tears stream- 
ing down her cheeks, to the weeping superioress. 

“Good-bye, Mother.” She was shaking with sobs 
now. 

“Mary be the same brave girl that you have been. In 
all your trials you know to whom you must look. God 
has shown his predilection for you in afiiic^ins: you; whoin 


ok WttAT'S IN A NAME? 87 

the Lord loveth, He chastiseth. ‘Afflictions are the most 
certain pledge that God can give us of the love He bears 

“With His grace, I can do all things, Mother,” responded 
Mary; “may I never abuse it!” 

She was on the train and in a seat. She scarcely realized 
that the train was moving. She looked through the raised 
window at the thin form of the Sister. Perhaps she would 
never again see that dear, patient woman. She tried to 
rise that she might lean from the window to say a last fare- 
well, but her strength had left her. Her head fell help- 
lessly on the seat; she saw through a mist the kind, pain- 
distorted face of Mother Eulalia, and then the cars rolled 
away. 

As the train tore along, Mary lay in her seat like one 
stupified. The entire afternoon wore away, but she did 
not once rise. The dainty lunch in her traveling bag was 
forgotten. 

The other passengers looked inquiringly at the heavily 
veiled girl. Two men sitting opposite to her were giving 
her their undivided attention. 

“I’ll wager she’s a beauty,” whispered one. “Look at 
her figure, a sculptor could never carve a better.” 

“Ye gods, what hands!” said the other. “No wonder 
that Hawthorne’s Kenyon sculptured Hilda’s hand if it 
was as beautiful as one of those.” 

Two women, one old, the other young, were holding an 
earnest conversation, and from their nods and frequent 
glances in Mary’s direction, it was evident that she was the 
topic under discussion. The sighs which came from the 
unhappy girl’s lips, and the involuntary little wrings which 
she ever and anon gave her hands, told them that she was 
not asleep. 

And Mary, she hardly realized that there were people 
around her, that she was not alone. She was trying to 
pray, trying to lift up her heart from the depths of misery 
into which it had been plunged. 


bkibGEi', 

Evening shades were falling round. Mary raised her 
veil, and laid her cheek against the cool window-pane. 
The men who had sat opposite to her were gone, and the 
two women had at once taken the seat vacated by them. 
They gave a little exclamation when they saw Mary^s 
lovely face; but she heard them not; her grief was a wall 
that shut her off from all the world. 

She closed her eyes, and fell into a stream of bitter re- 
flection. She was going back to the coal mines, the unex- 
pected had come. Had she been less religious, she might 
have prayed for death, so great was her disappointment. 
No more sweet convent life for her; no more of the happy 
days that had been; no longer would she wear the relig- 
ious habit and veil, the loss of which almost broke her 
heart. She was alone in the dreary desert of the world 
again. She had ranked herself among the chosen people 
of God, and now found that she had no right to be there. 
She was not an Israelite, she was an intruder in the favored 
band; to her it was not permitted to rest beneath the shade 
of the Pillar of Cloud by day, or to travel by the light of 
the Pillar of Fire by night. She was no longer to feast 
her famishing soul with the heavenly manna of the chosen 
ones. 

She had her hand on a little crucifix she carried in her 
bosom, and the touch of that consoled her. It brought 
back the memory of One who had been “led as a sheep 
to the slaughter.” 

She was about to resume the old life, the life that she 
thought she had given up forever; about to return to 
Montgomery, to her family that she had left, as she 
thought, for all time. They knew, of course, the truth; 
that she was standing on the awful gulf of insanity, into 
which she might fall at any time. The very thought almost 
drove her mad. 

A vision of a narrow, padded cell with a grated window, 
through which stole a single ray of grey light, came before 
her. She saw a woman, with wild eyes and terrible face, 


OR WHAT'S IN A NAME? 


89 


chained to the wall, a gibbering, insane creature. With 
a mighty effort, she sent, up a prayer to the great white 
throne of God, and the appalling picture vanished like a 
mist before the sun. Human nature of itself could not 
have supported so great a tension, religion was her stay. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


THE ENDING OF A FEUD. 

Bridget called to see Mrs. Steele on the day of her son’s 
funeral. 

“She has been here,” said the old lady abruptly, “so 
beautiful, the woman my son loved. She came veiled, 
but as she looked at him in his coffin, she put her veil up, 
that she might better view his face. I saw her; small 
wonder my dear Warren loved her. But she did not speak 
to me. She slipped out before I could detain her.” 

Bridget scanned every woman’s face at the funeral, but 
she was doomed to disappointment; Belle was not there. 

Bridget spent all that day in the sewing room with Sister 
Antoninus. The nun knew well how Bridget loved Sister 
Isabella, and how she missed her, so she was not surprised 
to find her sewing companion quiet and sad to-day — some- 
thing very unusual for Bridget. The Sister fell to talking 
about nuns she knew. 

“You are aware, Bridget, what feuds mean in the United 
States. Well, a Sister of Mercy was the means of ending 
one which had lasted for years. She was a little bit of a 
woman, was Sister Petronilla, with big eyes and a thin, 
tanned face. Her hands were like a baby’s, they were so 
small, but were as hard as boards. 

“The superioress had rented a large building in the South 
or West, and found it hard to make ends meet. She sent 
Sister Petronilla to collect money from the ranches. They 
say that the Sister got together a very large sum. 

“She was accompanied by a Miss Large, who is now a 
Sister of Mercy, and from whom I learned these facts. 

“Sister Petronilla and Miss Large collected at Media. 


ok WttAT^g m A NAME? 


Having finished there, they wished to go to Cedar Creek, 
a town some hundred miles distant. 

“In those days, trains did not run so frequently between 
the towns, as they do now. The men at Media told Sister 
Petronilla that she could get no train to Cedar Creek till 
the next morning. It was then only noon. 

“‘But I want to get there to-morrow morning,^ she said. 

“There was no team-road between Media and Cedar 
Creek. 

“‘Isn’t there any way at all to get to Cedar Creek before 
to-morrow evening?’ asked the Sister. 

“‘There is only one way that I know of,’ replied one of 
the men,’ and that is to go by way of the tool-truck, which 
the railroad men left here last week.’ 

“‘We will go on that,’ said the Sister. 

“And they did. Everything went along smoothly, the 
Sister and the girl sitting on the front of the truck, and a 
man propelling it. 

“Sister Petronilla was watching the sills as she flew over 
them. Suddenly the brave little soul screamed and jumped 
off the truck. Miss Large screamed too, so did the man; 
they felt that the Sister had certainly been killed. 

“ He went back when he got the truck stopped, and 
found Sister Petronilla stanching with her handkerchief 
the blood that oozed from a cut in her hand. She was not 
hurt much. 

“ ‘ Why did you jump off ? ’ he asked. 

“‘I saw a green snake on the track, and it frightened 
me.’” 

“He laughed heartily, so did she. As they went to the 
truck, they saw that the snake had been killed by it — 
a reptile about a foot long. 

“The truck reached Cedar Creek next morning. Be- 
tween Joe Kline and Pete Smith, at Cedar Creek, there 
existed a feud. Old Tom Kline, Joe’s father, hated old 
Daniel Smith, Pete’s father. After a number of quarrels, 
they shot each other dead. The sons had each his share 


9!2 


BRmGET, 

of his father’s hatred. Joe and Pete were married before 
they came to any serious encounter. 

“Joe Kline’s wife took Sister Petronilla to her home. 
She was a religious woman, and she made the Sister and 
Miss Large comfortable. 

“Sister Petronilla was in a tent eating a lunch when 
Joe’s wife ran screaming to her side. 

“‘O Sister, Sister! come! come! Come with me for 
God’s sake. Sister! Pete Smith and my husband are going 
to fight with pistols!’ 

“Sister Petronilla was out like a flash of lightning. 
Miss Large fell on her knees, and prayed so loudly that 
every one about could hear her. 

“Sure enough, Joe and Pete were squared off, and were 
just about to fire. No one knew where she came from, 
but before any of the men who had gathered around could 
speak, a little black figure with a floating veil sprang be- 
tween the two enemies. She pulled Pete Smith’s pistol 
from his hands, and pelted it far away from her. 

“‘You will not shoot an unarmed man!’ she said, turn- 
ing to Joe Kline. 

“Joe threw down his weapon, and gave Pete a kind 
look. ‘ No, nor do I want to shoot any man,’ he said. 

“A mighty cheer went up to heaven from the men who 
were standing around, a cheer for the fearless little Sister. 
She talked to those two big men, did that little woman, and 
told them of God’s mercy towards the erring. 

“Her voice was as sweet as a silver bell, and she could 
talk in a way that no one was able to resist. She saw 
Joe and Pete shake hands and promise to be good friends, — 
a promise they kept. The two wives kissed each other 
and wept for joy. 

“That night a heavy rain fell, and the wind blew so 
fiercely about the little tent in which slept Sister Petronilla 
and Miss Large, that its two occupants feared every moment 
it would be torn from over their heads. No such acci- 
dent happened, however. When morning dawned, Sister 


OklWHAT^rmiA NAME? 03 

Petronilla learned that all the other tents had been blown 
away. Hers had been saved from a like fate by the men 
who held it down all that stormy night. Turn by turn 
the men had quietly taken their post at the tent, each 
proud and eager to serve the Sister.” 

“Where is the Sister now?” asked Bridget. 

“Dead.” 

“And Miss Large?” 

“Living. She is here to-day, but you would not be 
allowed to see her and speak with her. I must not tell you 
anything about her. Hurry here to the window; she is 
just getting into a carriage.” 

Bridget looked out and saw two nuns. The face of one 
was turned toward the sewing room, and Bridget recog- 
nized the features at once. It was her mysterious friend, 
Louise. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


A LUCKY LOSS. 

Bridget fell into a deep silence for a while. She was 
glad that Louise was safe again in her convent home. 

At length Bridget brightened up; clouds always pass 
away, and the sun shines, she thought. She looked at 
Sister Antoninus’ work. It was done with colored silk 
threads, so fine that Arachne herself could scarcely have 
spun a finer, and represented an overturned basket of 
roses. So deftly was it executed that Bridget almost 
instinctively leaned forward to pick up one of the fallen 
flowers. She noticed that Sister Antoninus sewed with 
her left hand, her right being concealed under her work. 

“Sister,” she said, “your needle is better than the brush 
of many an artist.” 

Sister Antoninus laughed a little at the compliment. 
“Yet I do not care very much for needle work,” she said. 
“I think I acquire more merit in doing this than any other 
of my active duties; I so dislike the needle.” 

Then the subject was turned to religious vocation — a new 
theme for Bridget. 

“Have you. Sister, ever known any girl who lost her 
religious vocation?” 

“No, but I know one that came very near losing hers. 
I have half a mind to tell you about her.” 

“O do. Sister,” Bridget pleaded. 

“Well,” and the bright little needle, with its long, shining, 
glossy hair, flew faster than ever, “we’ll call this lady Eula 
De Long — a pretty name, don’t you think so? Eula was 
beautiful, and had many accomplishments, among which 
music held the highest place. She was an excellent piano- 
player, and had graduated from a first-class academy of 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


95 

music. It was not a Catholic institution. Eula was only 
seventeen then. 

“She felt that God wanted her in the convent, and she 
knew that her parents, being wealthy, did not need her. 
They were a saintly couple; and though Eula was their 
only child and the sunshine of their old age, she was aware 
that they would ask nothing better than to see her make the 
vows of a religious. No one knew of Eula’s budding voca- 
tion save her confessor. She kept the thought of her 
religious calling, pondering it in her heart. 

“‘My parents shall be informed of it in a good time,’ 
said Eula to herself. 

“Eula, however, was vain, and praise always turned her 
shallow little head. Shortly after her return from school, 
she played at an entertainment. Her music created a 
furore. Her touch was ‘divine,’ a romantic newspaper 
reporter wrote. The following evening the newspaper 
said that Eula De Long, in the musical line, was a gem that 
would not be hidden in the dark, unfathomed ocean of 
obscurity. Of course, it was a country town that Eula 
lived in, and it was a country paper that contained the 
lengthy article on her skill; yet Eula was a prodigy. Her 
silly brain was put at odds with her heart by this flattery. 

“She played in public again soon after, and again she 
was a success. Eula was much sought after both by Catho- 
lics and Protestants. She played in churches, in private 
dwellings, at concerts — everywhere, in short. Soon her 
attention was entirely taken up with music. She was 
wont to draw before her mind’s eye a bright picture of her 
future. She should become a professional player, and 
should travel. God by degrees was fading from her thoughts. 
The fancied applause of thousands drowned the ringing 
of the convent bell she used to have in her ears. The tow- 
ering opera shut out from her sight the ivy-mantled walls 
of the convent. A beautiful woman, in Eula’s imagination, 
took the place of the soft-featured nun that of old had been 
there. In short she had abandoned her vocation. She 
had sold her birthright for a mess of pottage. 


96 


BRIDGET, 


“One evening she was standing beside an open window 
of her home, and looking abstractedly out at the softly 
undulating lawn. God had come back to her thoughts. 
She knew that He wanted her in the convent; but she wanted 
to be before the public eye. He seemed to plead with her, 
but she refused to hearken. He threatened punishment, 
and she turned cold with fear. How powerful God is! 
He had given her musical talent. She was aware that she 
ought to use it for His honor and glory. There was a 
mighty struggle going on in Eula’s heart, as she raised her 
uneasy eyes to look at the setting sun. She drew a chair 
to the window, and laid her small white hand on the sill. 
A large Japanese vase was placed under the sash to keep 
it up, and Eula’s elbow struck that. Down came the win- 
dow with a crash. Eula remembered only a stinging pain 
that ran through her fingers, her hand, her arm — and that 
was all, for she fainted. The second and third fingers of 
her right hand were so badly crushed that they had to be 
amputated. I need not put Eula’s grief and remorse of 
conscience in words.” 

“Did she go to the convent?” 

“Yes — but that was a year after. When about to make 
her final vows she thought of our dear Saviour’s words: 
‘If thy hand scandalize thee cut it off, it is better for thee 
to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into 
hell.”’ Stitch! Stitch! 

“And may I ask, is she still living?” 

Stitch! “Ye-es,” stitch! stitch! “yes, she is living, and 
is very happy in the convent. She loves music passionately, 
and it is the greatest cross of her life that she cannot play. 
Yet she feels that God’s way of dealing with her was gentle. 
What might not have become of her, had He not reached 
forth His fatherly hand, and snatched her from the edge 
of the precipice whither her steps were leading her! She 
never hears a note of music, Bridget, but a tear steals into 
her eyes. It brings back vividly her sin and what she has 
lost.” 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


97 


As Sister Antoninus turned to leave, her work slipped 
from her hand to the floor. She stooped to pick it up; and 
Bridget noticed that the second and third fingers of her 
right hand were gone. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


A WIFE’S SACRIFICE. 

Bridget noticed a new patient in one of the poorer wards 
of the hospital — a pale, thin man beside whom sat a woman, 
holding his hot hand in both of hers. He had just come 
that morning. The woman was young, scarcely five and 
twenty, and was fair to look at. Her hair a golden-brown, 
severely brushed back from her pure, colorless face; her 
eyes, blue and limpid; her hands well-shaped, though 
roughened by labor. The man could not be more than 
thirty. His face, despite its emaciation and the dark 
circles beneath the eyes, was handsome. 

The sick man’s eyes opened, and rested lovingly on the 
sweet face at his side. 

“Delia, you must be very happy to-day, the day of my 
conversion,” Bridget heard him say. “O little wife, how 
patient, how gentle, how loving you arel” He pressed 
her hand. “Your prayers have saved me from eternal 
ruin. How much misery, how many hours of gloom I 
might have saved myself in the past, had my heart been 
less hard!” 

“O James, forget the past,” the wife answered. “God 
has blotted it out for ever. Not my poor prayers, but His 
mercy have saved you from yourself and the enemy. James 
dear, how good God is to you and me! How can we ever 
thank Him for the great blessing of your conversion! I 
sinned when I married you, you a godless man, but God 
has forgotten your iniquity and mine.” 

Bridget learned the story from Mother Eulalia. James 
Dickson, four years before, wedded Delia Carroll. He 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


99 


was an infidel; she, a Catholic. Delia’s only living rela- 
tive, a brother, objected to the match, but she was obsti- 
nate. She said that she should see the day when James 
would be a fervent Catholic, would accompany her to Mass, 
and would say the Rosary with her. As the years glided 
away, and James still persisted in his atheism, Delia’s 
heart grew sad, at times almost despaired. He was very 
kind to her, and interfered in no way with her religion, but 
he was far from following in her footsteps. She offered 
her trials, her prayers, her sufferings, all her merits to God 
for her husband’s conversion. 

They were poor. Every morning, after he kissed her 
good-bye, and slung his battered dinner pail on his arm, 
she would watch the stalwart figure until it vanished, and 
would sigh; ‘‘How long, O Lord, how long must this bar- 
rier exist between me and the one I love best on earth, 
my all? Must he be lost, O my God? Nay, my love 
and Your mercy will save him. Lord, afflict me, but spare 
my husband.” 

Two weeks before James met with a severe accident at 
the works. Delia’s heart gave a great agonized leap when 
she saw the ambulance drive by her door to the hospital. 
One swift prayer to the Mother of Sorrows came from her 
lips. James was not dead — praised be God! She bore 
up well under the hard blow; she did not shriek or faint — 
only moaned. He could not recover, wiseacres said. 

Delia redoubled her prayers for the conversion of her 
husband. In the long watches of the night, when she sat 
by his pillow, and wet his burning lips, and brushed with 
her cool hand the masses of hair from his damp forehead, 
she begged God to take her in his stead. But God willed 
otherwise. 

Her prayers were heard. The divine grace touched her 
husband’s heart, and the purifying waters of baptism flowed 
over his brow. He was now fit for the kingdom of God. 

Mother Eulalia and the priest whose hand cleansed every 
stain from James Dickson’s soul, came to the injured man’s 
bed. He was sleeping, ■ at r 


100 


BRIDGET, 


‘‘Mrs. Dickson,” the priest’s kind eyes beamed upon 
her, “I have good news for you; the doctor has told me 
that your husband will soon be well again.” Her lips 
quivered piteously; her hands fell helpless in her lap, and 
she burst into tears. “But child, why do you weep?” 

“Father,” — how like a saint she looked as she stood 
there, her slight form trembling, her great eyes shining with 
tears! — “since our marriage my one prayer has been for 
my husband’s conversion. God has heard my petition. 
James will never again be as innocent, as pleasing in God’s 
eyes as he is now; to-day he is as pure as snow. And I 
want God to take him. I don’t think that I am wrong in 
wishing this.” 

The priest’s heart was too full for words; he looked 
fixedly at the wan, patient face, then turning, left the room. 

The prayers of Delia’s faithful heart reached the great 
throne of God; James died — died with his head on Delia’s 
bosom, with her hand in his, her voice breathing prayers 
into his ear. 

She knelt^alone with her dead, tears of gratitude to God 
flowing down her cheeks. She did not forget that James 
was her all on earth, that she was now poor and must earn 
her bread by the sweat of her brow. She knew that her 
home was gone, that life would henceforth be a great blank 
for her. But she was grateful to God for His mercies. 

Mother Eulalia stole to the mourning wife’s side. She 
smiled up through her tears into the Sister’s face. 

“He is in heaven. Mother Eulalia,” she said, “but 
heaven after all is not so very far away. A few short years 
— for the longest life is very brief, — and we shall meet, 
never, never to part again,” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


MARY BREEN’S LIFE AT MONTGOMERY. 

She was home, among the old scenes again; back with 
the dear ones “mam, pap, and Mattie;” but though these 
loved her more than ever, though she loved them just as 
dearly, it was no longer home for her. She had tasted the 
manna of the religious life, and her soul was starving amidst 
the fleshpots of her present existence. She had lived for 
more than a ^yearjbeneath the same roof with the Bride- 
groom, and now she was far from Him most of the day. 

It was evening, a spring evening in a coal-mining town. 
The collieries had suspended operations, and the miners 
were at home. There was quiet at Montgomery. 

Mrs. Breen had lighted the lamp. The simple supper 
was over, and the family was grouped about Mary, as she 
sat in her old rocker in the sitting-and-dining room. 

The clock on the little bracket — an ancient clock, with 
a voice like a Jew’s harp — had just struck seven. Mrs. 
Breen was plying her needle at the heel of an old gray 
sock. Breen was lying on a worn lounge, enjoying his 
corncob pipe. As he smoked, he kept his eyes fastened on 
Mary. Martha Breen, looking very young and pretty in 
her calico dress, sat with a big Maltese cat in her lap. She 
sighed as she looked at the dispirited face of her sister. 
Mary was lovelier than ever. Martha thought that she 
looked even better with her hair short, than she did with 
her luxuriant tresses. Martha was in an agony of mind. 
Brian Munley, during her sister’s absence, had grown 
to be fond of Martha. He had not seen Mary since her 
return from the convent; and Martha feared that the old 
flame might revive in his heart when his eyes fell on her 


102 


BRIDGET, 


beautiful face again. But Martha was not jealous; she 
was too noble for that and, besides, she was well aware of 
the fact that Mary would never marry. 

Almost every one at Montgomery knew of Mary’s return 
from the convent, and they knew also of the cause. Her 
uncle’s hereditary insanity had been bandied about by 
the gossips, whose name was legion at Montgomery. They 
knew that Mary would never have left the convent unless 
sent home, and they hit on the inherited insanity as the 
cause of her dismissal. Religious Orders in the Catholic 
Church will not receive as members any one in whose 
family insanity is hereditary. 

But some uncharitable tongues — oh, that such were 
more rare! talked unkindly of Mary Breen, and said that 
“they were sure, if it were looked into, she wasn’t such 
a saint as she pretended to be;” that “you could never 
trust those meek-faced ones in whose mouth even butter 
wouldn’t melt.” But Mary, on hearing of these detrac- 
tions, rejoiced that she was accounted worthy to suffer 
reproach for her Lord. “He will show you how great 
things you must suffer for His name sake,” had said the 
Sister-superior; and her words were already coming true. 

Brian Munley was to visit the Breens this evening, and 
Martha looked forward to his coming with an anxious 
dread. Was his old love for Mary dead ? Martha thought 
not; she prayed that it was. 

As soon as Brian saw Mary, that question was answered 
for Martha. His eyes sparkled with the old pleasure as 
he held her hand — held it too long, thought Martha. He 
gazed into her frank, uplifted eyes, with his great love in 
his own, but his gaze was lost on Mary. 

“ We’re glad toliave you with us again, Mary,” he said. 
“There’ll always be a welcome for you at Montgomery.” 

She smiled sadly. 

He hung on her every word that night; he seemed to 
forget that Martha existed. He was aware of Mary’s 
inherited insanity; would he, notwithstanding, have made 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


103 

her his wife if she had consented ? He undoubtedly would 
have; he never once thought of what the consequences 
of such a union might be; he knew only the present, there 
was no to-come in his love for her. But Mary did not 
understand why his hand, his great, strong hand, trembled 
when it touched hers, or why his eyes looked at her so, 
or why the flush came into his cheeks, though Martha 
did who sat watching the two from a corner. She was 
angry with herself for feeling so wretched, but nature would 
have her sway. 

Poor little girl! She cried herself sick that evening. 
She sat before the walnut-stained bureau in her room, and 
looked at her face in the cheap glass. It was indeed a 
pretty, a very pretty face, though now the eyes were red 
with weeping, and tears hung on the long dark lashes. 
She tried to smile at herself, but the smile was driven away 
by a fresh burst of tears. 

“It’s no use,” she sobbed, “I’ll never be as lovely as our 
Mary — never, never. Why, she looks like an angel when 
she smiles, and even now, though she hardly ever smiles, 
she’s like one that you read about in a novel.” She leaned 
her elbows on the bureau, and looked again long and earn- 
estly at herself. “My, I’ve a nice neck,” she said to her- 
self, throwing her head back that she might get a better 
view of her slim throat, “and my e)'es ain’t so bad.” She 
closed one with her finger, and looked at herself with the 
other. “Long lashes, too, grand, long, black ones, but, 
gracious, what ones Mary’s got! Then my nose turns up 
just a bit too much; it gives me a sassy appearance. 

“Oh, dear me, why should Brian fall in love with our 
Mary? She’s beautiful enough, to be sure, but she is too 
nice to be a miner’s wife. Most of the young fellows 
around here would prefer me as a wife; and why shouldn’t 
they? Mary’s too waxy to be over a stove. Whenever 
I see her cooking, I just have to think that she ought to be 
reading or writing or knitting or doing something of that 
sort. 


164 


BRIDGET, 


“There’s that Tom Cavan, he’s just in love with me, 
he’s crazy about me, but I can’t abear him. He’s entirely 
too conceity, and thinks himself such a swell that he ex- 
pects every girl to fire herself at his head. Just because 
his hair curls a little at the ends, like a drake’s tail; and 
because he’s got a sickly ghost of a mustache, which he 
plucks so much that I wonder he’s got his lip left; and just 
because he has one of his crooked teeth plugged with gold, 
he thinks that the girls can’t resist him. Such a goose as he 
is — always smiling and winking and trying to be nice with 
me; bah, I can’t even look at him any more. What did he 
do the other night, but nearly throw his back out of joint 
in his rush to pick up my handkerchief when it dropped. 
I guess if we were married a month or two, and I fell over 
the stairs, he wouldn’t come to see if me neck was broke. 
That’s just the kind of a fellow I put Tom Cavan down for. 

“Dave Daily was just such a sweet-tongued chap when 
he was courting poor Sophy Caine, and -taking her to all 
the dances. She believed all the stuff he told her. But 
she’s found to her sorrow that she put a lump of salt into 
her mouth instead of a lump of sugar; for now he guzzles 
her in the corner and gives her the boots every week or so. 

“And that horrible Pete Muffin’s almost as bad as Tom 
Cavan; he’s soft with conceit, too. No civilized being 
could ever go gander-dancing about a girl, like that moon- 
struck Pete does about me.” 

The reader may be lead to suppose that Martha Breen 
had Grecian blood in her veins. Every young admirer 
was a barbarian with her save Brian Munley, but the reader 
must make no such erroneous supposition. 

“But Brian, ah, he’s not like that; a different sort of 
a man entirely, Brian is,” and a soft light filled her eyes. 
“Now why couldn’t Brian faff in love with me, and Tom 
Cavan faff in love with somebody else, or even with Mary 
— no, not with her, no, no; she’s too good for him. Such 
a world! Oh, dear,” with a big sigh, “ here’s Mary unhappy 
because she can’t be a Sister; and Brian unhappy because 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


he can’t have Mary for his wife, and me, poor little me, 
unhappy because Brian don’t love me.” 

Another ‘^Oh, dear!” and a bigger sigh; then Martha, 
who cared but little for philosophy, gave up trying to find 
out why the course of true love never runs smooth, and 
went downstairs. 

She found Mary reading — a spiritual book, of course; 
she never read anything else. 

“You ought to know that book be heart, Mary; I see 
you reading it so often.” 

“I have a good portion of it in my heart, Mattie. It is 
a beautiful book. It is a pity that the Imitation is not read 
more. It holds consolation for every one, be his cross what 
it may. One sentence, Mattie, dear, I love to ponder on: 
Man proposes y hut God dis poses. 

Then the sisters fell to conversation; and Martha, as 
she listened to Mary’s beautiful language, couldn’t help 
thinking that Brian Munley had good taste, and she wished 
that she had studied her books more when she was at 
school. 

“For then maybe he would like me, if I could talk better 
grammar, and have such a nice way about me; men are 
taken up be such things,” she pondered in her foolish little 
heart. “Oh, if I only knew as much about books as I do 
about cooking.” 

Poor Martha! 


CHAPTER XX. 


AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR. 

A SLENDER little creature, with short, bushy black hair, 
eyes that were great wells of blackness, lips red as cherries, 
a sweet, Madonna-like face — that was Lalite Frazer. 

She smiled pleasantly at the nurses, showing a row of 
pearls that Helen of Troy might have been proud to claim 
for her own, and graciously bowed to the Sisters that she 
met on her way to the room assigned her. It was such a 
pretty one that the nurses called it the “fairy” room. It 
had been fitted up for the Sisters by a man whom they 
nursed back to health. He never could forget their kind- 
ness, and tried in this way to show his gratitude. 

Miss Frazer came to the hospital on a Saturday, The 
following Monday she was to undergo a surgical operation. 
She was given into Bridget Purcel’s charge. When Bridget 
brought her lunch on the day of her arrival, she was loung- 
ing in a wicker chair, buried in a deep reverie. Her hands 
were clasped behind her head, and her face wore a look of 
mingled remorse and fear. She murmured a kindly greet- 
ing, as Bridget set down the tray. How pretty she looked as 
she ate the crisp toast and sipped her chocolate! 

A book was lying on the table, one of those paper-bound 
novels, written in a flashy style by some of the modern-day 
authors. She caught Bridget’s eye resting on the colored 
titled-page. 

‘T suppose you don’t read novels. Miss Purcel?” she 
said, a smile flitting across her face. “Miss Purcel is your 
name, isn’t it ? I think the Sister told me that Miss Purcel 
would be my nurse.” 

Bridget bowed in assent to the last question and replied: 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


t67 


“I don’t have much time to read novels; we are kept 
very busy here, and when our ‘ outing-day ’ comes, I assure 
you, we nurses at Mercy Hospital do not spend our moments 
poring over the pages of a novel.” 

“Perhaps,” her brows knit in a small frown, as if she were 
in pain, “it would have been better for me had I read 
fewer novels. I think,” she added, smiling brightly, “you 
and I shall be friends. Miss Purcel.” 

That afternoon Bridget had a few moments further chat 
with Miss Frazer and found her an excellent conversation- 
alist. 

“You must take me to your chapel this evening, Bridget,” 
she said. She no longer called her Miss Purcel. “Is it 
a pretty one?” 

“Very; I am sure you will like it. Miss Frazer.” 

“Miss Frazer! Why not Lalite?” she queried, with an 
arch smile. “However, Bridget,” she subjoined, “you 
know by this time, I dare say, that I am no Catholic.” 

Yes, Bridget knew that. She had persisted in calling a 
picture of St. Teresa which hung on the wall of her room, 
“that beautiful Virgin,” meaning, of course, the Mother 
of God; and though about to undergo a serious operation, 
she had not asked for a priest. 

That evening when Miss Frazer and Bridget entered the 
chapel, it was only dimly lighted. She knelt while Bridget 
made a little act of obeisance to the patient Watcher of the 
Tabernacle. Bridget looked askance at her beautiful face 
as she knelt there, her slim hands folded, the faint light 
heightening her rich, dark beauty. Bridget thought of 
proud, lovely pagan Fabiola, and in her secret heart wished 
that she might prove to be Miss Frazer’s St. Agnes. 

“Remain here a minute, Lalite, please,” she whispered, 
“until I turn on the light.” 

“Bridget,” — how soft her voice was now! — “I do not 
care to see the chapel this evening; you may show it to me 
in the morning.” 

She arose hastily and turned to leave the chapel. When 


id^ ^ BRIDGET 

the portieres had closed with a gentle rustle behind them, 
she said: 

“I am going to lie down now, Bridget. Good-night,” 
smiling; “bring me an egg for breakfast.” 

Next morning Miss Frazer was dressed in a pretty pink 
gown, cut low at the neck, displaying her round white 
pillar-like throat, at which a single jewel blazed. 

“Do you care to see our chapel this morning?” Bridget 
said, as she chatted with Miss Frazer. “We shall have 
High Mass at nine o’clock. I dare say you have never 
attended Mass?” 

“No; but I know what your Mass is like. One of our 
actors” — for the first time Bridget learned that Miss Frazer 
was an actress — “was a Catholic, and a very good Catholic. 
He explained to me something about your Mass. Bridget,” 
she confessed prettily, “ I know very little of any religion. I 
believe that there is a God, and that there are Ten Com- 
mandments, but I do not belong to any sect. You can’t call 
me an infidel,” she laughed, “though in truth I am not what 
you may call a good Christian.” 

As Bridget left her, she said, “ Come for me at nine o’clock ; 
I’ll attend your service.” 

The nurse and her patient entered the chapel just as the 
priest ascended the altar steps. Miss Frazer genuflected; 
she was very polite. She seemed to be in profound thought, 
as she sat beside Bridget. The “ Mass Book for non-Catho- 
lics,” which Bridget had given her, lay in her hand neglected 
and unopened. She knelt with reverence or what looked 
like reverence, at the Consecration. 

“How solemn! how grand!” she said later in the day. 
“Bridget, you Catholics have a splendid service in your 
Mass. Oh, the melody of that Kyrie! ” 

When Bridget entered the “fairy” room that afternoon. 
Miss Frazer was lying on her bed, her face bathed in tears. 

“You are not well?” said Bridget, as she brushed back 
the thick, dark hair. 

“ Oh, Bridget, how glad I am that you have come! I am 


OR WHAT^S TN A NAME? 


100 


so wretched.” She sat upright, looking like a beautiful 
wild creature, with her disordered hair and tear-wet eyes. 
She drew Bridget down beside her. “ Bridget, I never before 
met a woman I liked so well as you, or one who won my 
affection in so short a time. How I wish I had such a sister! 
Perhaps I should have been better if I had,” with a little 
sigh. “Oh, Bridget,” tears rolled down her cheeks, “mine 
has been a selfish, a sinful life, and now — now — the end 
is come!” 

“Lalite,” Bridget responded, trying to be cheerful, “you 
speak as if you were old, and had seen long years of crime. 
Why, you are scarcely out of your teens; and you speak of 
the end. What do you mean?” 

“I feel that I shall die under the knife to-morrow, Brid- 
get,” she sobbed. 

“I have known a number of patients who felt that way,” 
Bridget said, “yet they left the surgical table, and are alive 
to-day.” 

“But they were not in so feeble a state as I am; and oh, 
I have had dreams,” shuddering, “such terrible dreams! 
I am sure that at the first cut of the knife I shall die,” she 
persisted; “and O Bridget, it is an awful thing to die when 
one has led such a life as mine. It is a fearful thought that 
I must face a God whom I have never honored. People 
say that He is merciful, but they also say that He is just. 
Bridget, Bridget, you Catholics believe in praying for one 
another; I ask you to pray for me.” 

“You must not pay any attention to your dreams, dear 
Lalite, they are the children of your disturbed mind. Per- 
haps, dear, you would like to see a prie — I mean a minister 
— a prie — ” 

She interrupted with, “No, no, Bridget; I want no one 
but you.” 

“May I send our chaplain to you?” Bridget pleaded. 

“No,” she repeated; “I want no minister, no priest.” 

“Lalite, dear; please do let me bring Mother Eulalia 
to you. She can talk to you so much better than I can, 
and — ” 


lio 


BRIDGET 


She lifted her hand with a little gesture of angry impa^ 
tience. “Bridget, I declare that I want no one but you. 
If you bring a Sister to me, you will displease me.^’ 

Bridget drew the yielding head down on her bosom. 
How like a child the actress was with her big eyes and 
quivering mouth! 

“Bridget, mine has been a gay, but an empty life. I ran 
away from home over two years ago. I wanted to go on 
the stage and have my own way; my home was too quiet. 
I have one brother who is much older than I, a hard, stern 
brother, Bridget, who was never kind to me. He—” she 
paused, her voice choked with tears. 

“ But your mother, Lalite, didn’t she love you, and wasn’t 
she kind to you ? And your father loved you ? ” 

“Yes, both my parents loved me, and were too kind. 
Oh, I was so wilful, but I am sorry — sorry.” 

“Haven’t you seen any of your relatives since you left 
them? Haven’t you heard from your home?” 

“I succeeded on the stage from the night of my first 
appearance, Bridget; my voice and talent won recogni- 
tion for me. I wrote home a year after my mad flight, 
and my brother answered my letter. I shall never forget 
his cruel words; they have blasted my life. He said that 
he never cared to see me again; that my father was dead — 
dead of a broken heart. There was not one word about 
my dear mother in the letter.” 

Miss Frazer buried her face in her hands, and tears 
trickled through her fingers. 

“Of course, dear,” Bridget said gently, “you did wrong 
in running away from home, but your sin is not beyond 
forgiveness. You were young and giddy.” 

“I have not told you all, Bridget; my running away, 
and becoming an actress was not all, not all.” She repeated 
the words mechanically. “You can guess the rest of my 
story: a giddy young girl, gifted and beautiful, on the stage 
without a mother’s warning voice to guide her. Perhaps 
if I had known more about God then, if I had been a 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


Ill 


Catholic like you, I should not have sinned so grievously.” 

“Some Catholics sin often, and in grave matters,” Brid- 
get answered, “but they repent, Lalite. You can do the 
same.” 

Miss Frazer was silent. 

The soft summer breeze came through the open window, 
— Bridget could feel it for years afterwards, — bringing 
with it the scent of the flowers in the garden below. It 
played with the dark curls that clustered about the actress’ 
ears and throat. Bridget could see the sky, with its 
flittering clouds. Her heart throbbed in pity for the bowed, 
sorrowful figure of poor Miss Frazer. What could she 
say to cheer her? 

Miss Frazer was awake betimes next morning. Great 
circles were beneath the dark eyes; there were lines of 
pain and weariness about the sweet mouth; the face was 
drawn. She told Bridget that she had not slept at all 
during the night. 

She looked at her watch. The hand was on the stroke 
of eight. 

“In two hours, Bridget,” she said sadly, “I shall meet 
my doom.” 

The small fingers were clenched, and a shudder ran 
through her. 

“Your thoughts are too gloomy even for this sad occasion, 
Lalite dear; I feel certain that you will not die.” 

“I wish I could feel so. Bridget, this is a hard, cruel old 
world, yet I am afraid to leave it. It must be a blessed 
thing for a world-weary soul, to say farewell to this vale 
of misery, a soul that has suffered patiently for her God, 
a soul that has sinned less heinously than I.” She paused, 
then went on: “Oh, I have suffered, suffered so much. 
My life has been a failure, my frail craft wrecked imme- 
diately after leaving the harbor; for I am still young. I 
wanted fame and fortune; I found heartache. 

“I have loved, ah, loved so fondly,” she continued. 
“Roger Carroll, the man I loved, whom I still love, was a 


112 


BRIDGET, 


Catholic. I might have been his wife, but — but — . He 
loved me, Bridget, as much as I loved him. He was all 
that was good and true and noble, not like the other men 
I knew; not like Norman Stroud, not like Wayne Carter.” 

Bridget started at the name. 

“Oftentimes my shallow, sinful heart reproached me 
when I looked at his frank, boyish face — the dear face that 
is impressed upon my heart; he was so much better than 
I. We were lovers for one short month. Oh, those happy, 
happy days! Then we parted, and the sun of my life set. 

“I knew Roger would never make me his wife unless I 
became a Catholic; but since the Catholic Church had 
such sons, why should I not become her daughter? When 
Roger Carroll joined our company, I had been on the stage 
over a year, and my life, as I have already told you, had 
not been what it should have been. Roger had heard 
nothing of my past, and I was happy that he had not. 
During the brief month he knew me, he so bound 
himself up in my heartstrings that he never left my thoughts 
night or day. My stay in Paradise was short; already 
a serpent was planning my ruin. 

“ One of our actresses, Leah Stroud, a sister of Norman 
Stroud, once my lover, conceived a violent passion for 
Roger Carroll. She was a tall, majestic woman, a perfect 
blonde, far more beautiful than I; and I feared with a 
jealous fear, when she cast her eyes upon him, that she 
might steal Roger from me. Many a pang of jealousy 
I suffered when I viewed her wonderful beauty. Why 
could I not be so lovely to win my heart’s hero? But 
Roger withstood all her wiles. He treated her as a friend, 
nothing more. 

“When Leah Stroud saw that I had Roger Carroll’s love, 
she came to me one day as I sat in my room at the hotel. 

“‘Miss Frazer,’ she said — she never called me Miss 
Frazer unless she was angry — ‘how can you conscientiously 
retain the love of such a man as Roger Carroll ? ^ 

“‘Conscientiously!’ I echoed, my heart beating rapidly. 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


113 

Did she know of my past ? ‘ What do you mean, Leah ? ’ 

“‘You know what I mean, Miss Frazer,’ she said, with 
bitterness; ‘Roger Carroll knows absolutely nothing about 
you; if he did, he would scorn to breathe your name.’ 

“Ah, heaven, she knew all! 

“I arose, staggered to a couch, and fell upon it with a 
moan. Already I saw the fruit of happiness torn from my 
lips. Leah Stroud’s severe face softened as she gazed upon 
me. 

‘I will not betray you, Lalite,’ she said, not unkindly, 
Tf you give Roger Carroll up.’ 

“Mad with rage and disappointed love, I leaped at her; 
I could have torn her limb from limb. 

“‘I will never give him upl’ I shrieked, regardless of 
what I said, regardless of all consequences. 

“With a cold, sneering smile, that was more cruel than 
a blow, she left me. An hour later, as I paced the floor, 
like a wounded tigress, Roger Carroll came to my room. 
With an exclamation of welcome, I turned to greet him, and 
beheld the mockingly triumphant face of Leah Stroud 
behind him. A glance at his countenance told me that the 
worst had come. The door closed. 

“‘Lalite,’ he caught my poor, fluttering hands in his 
strong grasp — oh, I dared not meet his honest eyes! — ‘tell 
this woman she lies.’ 

“‘She cannot,’ hissed my arch-enemy. 

“‘Oh, God, Roger!’ burst from my lips, ‘my punish- 
ment is greater than I can bear. Forgive me; forget the 
past; I have begun anew.’ 

“He dropped my hands, as if they were hot coals; his 
face turned ashen; and with a groan that came straight 
from his heart, he left me, left me, never to smile on me 
again. 

“With a bitter cry, I fell senseless to the floor. Then 
came a dreary spell of sickness; I was kept to my bed for 
nearly a month. I never saw Roger Carroll again. I 
heard that he went far away. Leah Stroud, in destroying 
piy hopes of becoming bis wife, ruined her own. 


BRIDGET, 


114 

“Oh, Bridget, I shall never forget the hours that Roger 
and I spent together, the religious instructions he loved to 
whisper into my willing ears. See,” she drew a small 
rosary from her bosom, “this he gave me only the night 
before we parted.” 

She pressed a kiss upon the shining beads, and a great 
pearly tear rolled down her colorless cheek. 

“Dear, I need not tell you of my life after he left me; it 
is too sad a story. Oh, had I only met Roger Carroll 
before I fled from my home, I should not have fallen so 
low; I should have been a good woman. But I dare say 
all wicked women would have been different, had they met 
a good man and loved him, while they were what they 
should be.” 

Shortly before Miss Frazer was taken to the surgical 
room, she gave Bridget her real name — Charlotte Bur- 
roughs. 

“Bridget,” she whispered, clinging to her, — “you must 
not let my brother Robert know anything about me until 
I am dead.” 

Bridget did not inform her that her brother had been, 
and perhaps still was, in prison for forgery. She pressed 
a lingering kiss on the actress’ lips, another, then she was 
obliged to leave her. 

As Bridget stood like one in a dream at the door of the 
operating-room after poor Lalite had been received into 
it. Sister Antoninus’ soft voice said: “Please take a lunch 
to the patient in Room 5. I will remain here, Bridget, if 
the doctors need anything, I will get it for them.” 

In passing the chapel, Bridget hastily threw aside the por- 
tieres and fell on her knees in the presence of the Redeemer 
of mankind. After she had prayed her heart felt lighter; 
she had done all she could for her poor friend. 

For the next hour Bridget was so engaged with various 
duties that she had no time to inquire about Charlotte. 

Mother Eulalia came hurriedly to her side. “Bridget,” 
she said, “go to Room 7 at onco. That new patient, Miss 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


“5 


Frazer, has just been taken from the operating-table. She 
is calling for you; she wants you to attend her. Sister 
Antoninus can do nothing with her. I fear the poor girl 
has but a few hours to live.” 

With tears streaming down her cheeks, Bridget flew to 
Charlotte’s side 

“Stay Sister Antoninus,” she said, laying a detaining 
hand upon the nun’s arm. 

“No, I want only you,” said Charlotte, peevishly, her 
eyes opening — “only you, Bridget, no one but you.” 

“Pray for her,” whispered Bridget to Sister Antoninus, 
as she left the room. 

Bridget saw that Charlotte’s hours were numbered. All 
the color had gone from her face, her lips were almost 
white. 

“Bridget, it is awful to die. Oh, if I could only undo 
the past ! I meant to become good when I got old, but the 
Almighty Being whom I neglected, has cut me off short. 
Bridget, I look now to you; is there any hope for me 
in eternity? After my miserable life in this world, what 
awaits me in the next?” 

“Christ came to save sinners, dear,” Bridget murmured, 
supporting the drooping head with her arm. “Our sins 
are as a little grain of sand beside the mountain of God’s 
mercy. ” 

A sudden thought struck Bridget. 

“Lalite,” — she will call her by the name under which she 
first knew her, — “have you ever been baptized?” She 
asked it eagerly, anxiously. 

“No, Bridget; I belong to no sect.” 

“Thank God, oh, thank God! — Lalite, you believe in 
God ? that Christ is the Redeemer of the world ? ” 

“Yes, Bridget,” — her voice was growing fainter. 

God’s all-powerful grace must have been pouring into 
that poor worn heart. Perhaps in the peace of some con- 
vent-cell, a . saintly recluse was sending her petitions to 
the throne of, Go4 for the souf that wa§ about to leave the 


BRIDGET, 


ii6 

world. Perhaps Roger Carroll was praying for the unfor- 
tunate girl he had loved. 

“Bridget, all Roger Carroll’s teaching comes over my 
heart, like an overwhelming flood. Holy Trinity, Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, look down with pity upon me. I 
want to die a Christian and a Catholic. Will this belief 
save me, Bridget?” 

Her eyes opened with a weary stare, her voice seemed 
far away. 

“Lalite, baptism will save you, will make you a saint! ” 

Her eyes were closing. Bridget seized a glass of water 
that stood on the table, and poured it over her forehead. 
Lalite joined her hands, as Bridget murmured the solemn 
words of baptism. 

“Lalite, I have baptized you Mary in honor of our Blessed 
Mother. May she lead you to the feet of her divine Son!” 

Charlotte’s eyes opened, and into them came a beautiful 
light such as Bridget never before saw in the eyes of a 
mortal. Those eyes gazed into hers with a look of gratitude 
that she never forgot. They then closed to open in this 
world no more. Charlotte’s lips parted, and a single word 
came from them. Bridget bent down her ear, and heard 
soft as the sigh of a zephyr, — “Mercy!” 

She fell on her knees and with a fervent prayer pressed 
her face into the bed clothes and wept tears of joy. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


JUDGE NOT. 

He was a tall, handsome man, and Mrs. Dickson leaned 
affectionately on his arm, as they came down the hospital 
corridor towards Bridget. 

“You see, dear Miss Purcel,” she said, “I am not left 
entirely destitute by my husband’s death. This is my 
brother, Roger Carroll.” Bridget bowed. “He and I 
parted on my wedding day. We had quarreled about my 
husband, and I, in anger, said that Roger should never 
hear from me again until James was a Christian.” 

“And she kept her word,” said the tall, handsome man. 
Now we shall spend the rest of our lives together.” 

“He is not married,” said Mrs. Dickson, “so I shall 
have to be wife as well as sister.” 

A little shade came over Roger Carroll’s smooth face. 
Bridget noticed it and knew. She was glad that he had not 
forgotten. 

Shortly after when Mrs. Dickson was chatting with 
Mother Eulalia and Sister Antoninus, Bridget led Roger 
Carroll to the “fairy” room and stopped at the door. 

“You knew Lalite Frazer?” she asked. He bowed. 
“She is dead,” said Bridget. “She died a Catholic — was 
baptized a minute before her death.” 

“Thank God!” It was more a groan than a prayer as 
it came from his lips. 

Bridget opened the door, and he glanced in. A beautiful 
dead face met his eyes. He entered, Bridget closed the 
door, and left him alone, alone with the weary heart that 
was at rest forever. 

That evening Bridget was going along the corridor of 


BRIDGET, 


ii8 

the hospital. Suddenly she heard a voice cry aloud in 
pain, a voice that sent the blood rushing about her heart. 
She hastily opened the door, and saw one of the doctors 
bending over a delicate woman on the bed, whose golden 
hair fell in waves across the pillow. Sister Antoninus who 
stood near weeping quietly, came close to Bridget. 

“She is stabbed in the bosom, and will die, so young, 
so beautiful. She has asked for the priest.” 

The sufferer saw Bridget. “Great merciful God! Is 
my poor brain mocking me? Is it you, Biddy, O Biddy?” 

Then the sisters’ heads were together, the dark hair of 
one mingling with the other’s bright tresses; and Belle’s 
weary head was pillowed on Bridget’s bosom. 

Bridget sat by the bedside, and gazed at the beautiful 
face on the pillow. The priest had performed his sacred 
office; and Bridget was happy that he had remained so 
long with the dying one. 

“Biddy dear, I have not been so wicked after all. I tell 
you this for your consolation. I have been more weak 
than wicked. My marriage was a mistake, my mad love 
a weakness. My lover never knew I was a wife. To him 
I was Lora Davenport, a name I got from a novel. Per- 
haps, I should have been more of a Christian, had I read 
fewer novels. I met him several times; I dallied with 
temptation. When I left you at Mine Run, there were 
in my brain plans at which I now shudder, plans which 
were never carried out, dear; your prayers saved me. 

“Last night I decided to go to confession as soon as 
possible, and I went this evening. After I had said part 
of my penance — oh, there was much of it, dear; it was a 
long time since my last confession — I left the church very 
happy. I had not walked a yard from the church when I 
came face to face with Robert Burroughs, my husband; 
a chill ran over me, I loathed him, but God’s grace tri- 
umphed. I threw my arms about his neck and forced 
myself to kiss him. O Bridget, can you pity me! God 
knows — onl^ God can know, how I (elt, as I looked thrgueh 


OR WHAT’S llsr A NAME? 


itO 

the long vista of years to come, when I should be chained 
to this man. But what mattered it? My lover was dead. 

‘‘My husband and I walked on into the park. It had 
grown rather dark, for I had been in the church a long time. 

“‘I have escaped from prison,’ he said; ‘I must be care- 
ful. I have work to do before those hounds of the law 
catch me.’ 

“‘Let us fly together,’ I said. 

“There was a grove near a dark, gloomy place. 

“‘Come in here,’ he breathed in my ear. 

“I thought he saw an officer coming, and I hurriedly 
obeyed. In an instant he had gripped my throat and 
forced me to my knees. 

“‘Strumpet,’ he hissed, ‘false-hearted, false-tongued! 
You kissed me with the lips that are warm with another 
man’s kisses. My mother followed you, and told me of 
your love affair. You covered your tracks well, but not 
so well as to deceive her. Go down to hell, where there 
are others like you; this world is not for such as you.’ 

“He buried a knife in my bosom. My blood wet his 
hands as I fell prostrate on the grass. He kissed me 
fiercely, and I felt his burning tears dew my face. Think- 
ing I was dead he disappeared. I lay there a long time. 
I knew I was going to die — and O Bridget, believe poor, 
sinful me, I wanted to receive for the last time our 
Lord in His Blessed Sacrament. You see all my old Catho- 
lic teaching had not departed from me. At length a girl 
came near, and I called to her. The priest will say the rest 
of my penance for me; you need not worry, dear. Bury 
me secretly, anywhere.” 

“You must be buried at Mine Run.” 

“Not there, Bridget, oh, not there. Mam must not 
know of my death.” 

“She is with pap. Belle, and you must be laid there too. 
O darling, you want to be near him, I know you do.” 

“Did mam forgive me, Bridget?” 

“Yes, yes, from her heart.” 


BRIDGEf 


i2d 

“Then oury me there, bury me there, where I can be 
with dear old pap. Take this money for Masses. Per- 
haps you need it, dear, but I am selfish still, selfish as ever, 
and I need the Masses — Bridget, there is a fearful change 
coming over me. Oh, I know what it is! Let me lay my 
head on your breast, as in the old days, but first open the 
window, and let the air blow upon me; the room is stifling.” 

Bridget threw up the window, and the bright moon veiled 
herself behind a cloud. The air was balmy, and far off 
somewhere there was music. She took the graceful head 
on her bosom, and Belle’s arms stole round her neck. The 
dying woman nestled to her like a child. 

“O Biddy, my dear innocent, white-souled Biddy, if I 
had never left this pure breast! O Biddy!” Her little 
hands slipped from Bridget’s neck and were groping about. 
“Biddy, have you left me? O Biddy, where are you?” 

“Here, love, here.” 

“But I cannot see you. O Biddy, I am blind.” 

Bridget was blind too, blind with scalding tears. 

“Biddy!” Bridget took the white hands, poor quivering 
little doves in hers — took them to her bosom, as she had 
done the night before Belle left home. “O Biddy, my 
hands are cold.” And they were. 

The warm rays of the sun were softly touching the tomb- 
stones and well-kept mounds in St. Joseph’s Cemetery'. 
The gate of the churchyard was open. Many were kneel- 
ing beside the tombs of loved ones gone before. 

Old men, stooped with the weight of years, were on 
their knees beside graves thickly grown with long grasses; 
women, some young and fair, others faded and bent, had 
sunk down beside other mounds, and were sobbing with 
the grief of mothers or wives; girls, with lovely fresh faces 
and long plaits, knelt near storm-beaten tombstones, their 
hands folded in prayer. 

Near a little green mound with a pretty vine running 
round about it, stood a trio not unknown to the reader — 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


121 


Mr. and Mrs. Barney Green and their son John. The 
three were well-dressed and contented-looking. The hus- 
band was gazing fondly at his wife, as she wiped her eyes 
with her cambric handkerchief. 

“Till,’^ he said, “Fred’s death made a man of his father. 
God was severe with me when He tuk Fred from me, but 
He knows best. He is a better Father to me boy than ever 
I was.” 

Mrs. Green dried her eyes and turned to her husband 
with her wonted smile. 

“Barney, God’s good even when He punishes; when 
He uses the rod. He doesn’t forgit how weak we are. He 
tuk Fred from us, but He left John to give us happiness, 
when He might a taken both our boys in punishment of our 
sins. And we can’t complain. Look how them Purcels 
were afflicted. Oh, it went through me to-day when I 
saw poor Bridget Purcel. Poor little Belle, pretty little 
thing! O Barney, let us go home. This funeral has 
upsot me — poor Belle Purcel ’s! God rest her soul! Brid- 
get is up there be the grave yet. O come! ” 

Never was it harder to leave Mine Run. Bridget sat 
in the station and wept till the train came. Her tears were 
still flowing when she boarded it, and she was glad to sink 
into a seat and indulge her grief. All she loved was at 
Mine Run. In the cemetery the new mound wherein she 
seemed to have buried her heart. Oh, the loneliness! yet 
it was sweet to think that the world could harm Belle no 
more. 

And Hugh Nolan, it was hard to go so far away from 
him, yet it was almost as hard to be near him; he was so 
cold. Did he love some one else? And if not would he. 
ever love her? 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THE LILY AND THE VIOLET. 

The spring glided into summer and autumn came. 
The picnics were becoming less frequent, the euchre parties 
and indoor dances more in vogue. Martha Breen was the 
belle of every gathering at Montgomery; but her enjoy- 
ment of those amusements would have been much aug- 
mented, had Brian Munley attended more of them; as it 
was she enjoyed herself at every gathering, be it dance or 
euchre. 

“That Mattie Breen is a perfect little clip; she’s always 
laughing and cutting up,” remarked one of the stars of 
lesser magnitude, looking admiringly and enviously at 
Martha. 

They were at a dance; and Martha was surrounded 
by admirers, but though her laugh rang out merriest, her 
eyes were roving about for Brian, who was absent. 

Breen and his wife realized that Brian Munley loved 
Mary, and they pitied him and Martha. Why could he 
not love the younger sister, who loved him, and was a 
lovable woman! 

Brian never spoke of his love for Mary; he knew that 
to speak of it would be useless. He did not know, stupid 
man that he was, that he had Martha’s heart in his keeping; 
but how could he notice the violet when his eyes were 
fastened on the lily ? 

October, a blustry, sleety month it was. Old winter had 
sent a severe herald before him. The trees stood stark 
and naked, looking gaunt and haggard without their rustling 
green robes. As the piercing wind blew unpityingly on 
them, they flung their uncovered arms about in a vain 


OR WHAT'S IN A NAME? 


1^3 


endeavor to warm their chilled blood. The little gardens 
were empty of flowers; the green plots were dry and seared, 
for winter’s frost had burned with its baleful breath all 
life from the tender, shrinking blades. The birds that 
sang so sweetly were gone; gone were the bees and butter - 
flies. The little rippling brooks and tinkling rills that had 
escaped the beauty-destroying coal bank, were hidden 
beneath a thick sheet of ice, as was the once limpid pond. 
All nature about Montgomery seemed dead, and its withered 
body waited for its white shroud that was so long a-coming. 

It was then that the smallpox broke out at Montgomery, 
and in a brief time claimed for its own several of the little 
town’s inhabitants. A pesthouse was hurriedly erected 
about a mile from the town at the foot of one of the moun- 
tains, and thither the unfortunate victims were borne. It 
was a lonely place; behind the poor crazy pesthouse were 
the thick-wooded mountains, before it stretched a dense 
forest. 

Then the attending physician cried for a nurse — great 
was the need of one — but could not secure what was so 
necessary. 

Mary Breen saw her work, and just as joyfully as she had 
obeyed the call to the convent did she obey her summons 
to the pesthouse. She prepared to go despite the vehe- 
ment protestations and prayers of her parents, her sister 
and Brian Munley. 

“She will never return to us alive,” bemoaned Mrs. 
Breen;” she’ll slave herself to death there. O Mary listen 
to the mother that bore you; don’t go, dear; it will kill me.” 

“I must, mam; God wants me there. Some one must 
take care of the sufferers, and I arh able to do so. My 
experience in hospital work will stand me in good stead; 
and God will bring me back again.” 

These were her farewell words. She left home with the 
sobs of her mother and Martha resounding in her ears. 
Brian Munley caught one glance at her beautiful face, as 
she sat in the red wagon, and was driven to the pesthouse. 


MIDGET, 


124^ 

During the long months that the epidemic lasted, Mary 
Breen did not forsake her perilous post at the pesthouse. 
Those that left it told of her fortitude, her sweet patience, 
her womanly tenderness with the afflicted ones. They 
told how she tearfully closed, like a pitying angel, the eyes 
of those that died. 

And Mary was happy; she had found her work. She 
was not afraid of the dreadful disease. She lived for others, 
not for herself. If she could save one life by laying down 
her own, she would do so; but she had hitherto preserved 
almost a hundred lives, and had not suffered from the 
disease. 

Yet the distress of mind, the vigils, the onerous duties 
were telling on her, though she would not admit the fact; 
and it was well that the infectious disease ceased when it 
did, else Mary Breen would have fallen among those for 
whom she toiled. Only a few, comparatively speaking, 
lost their lives; and she had struggled in vain to save them. 
The last patient cured, she left the pesthouse a heroine. 
Thinner and older-looking, almost waxen in her pallor, she 
came forth; but she was still “the beautiful Mary Breen.” 

During Mary’s absence a change had come over Brian 
Munley. He knew that he could never win the love of such 
a woman. Besides, he had discovered that her sister 
loved him; so he did what he thought best. He tried to 
uproot his affection for Mary from his heart, and to become 
fond of Martha. He succeeded well while Mary was absent, 
but on her return the old love came back stronger than ever; 
came back on him like a flood that swept away every resolu- 
tion, every endeavor, to love Martha. While Mary lived 
Martha could hope in vain for Brian’s love. And Martha 
wept, wept like Byblis in her sorrow. 

Immediately after Mary had left the pesthouse, she fell 
ill with nervous prostration. She was a week sick. She 
never complained. She had her rosary very often in her 
hand, and her prayer-book was not far from her side. 
Martha was her constant attendant, and Brian Munley 


OR WHAT'S IN A NAME? 


visited her every evening, with the privilege of an old friend, 
he said. 

One morning when Martha was absent, Mrs. Breen told 
Mary that Martha loved Brian Munley, whereas he loved 
her. 

“Impossible!” ejaculated the girl in genuine surprise. 
“Ah, if my mind had not been so wrapped in my own affairs, 
I might have seen this. Poor Mattie, poor Brian!” 

She began to think, and her brows knit slightly. The 
scales were gone from her eyes; what she could not under- 
stand in Brian’s conduct before, what she did not even try 
to understand, was now very clear to her. How blind she 
has been! How cruelly, how selfishly blind! 

“I will — ^yes — ” but Mary realized that she was thinking 
out loud, so she broke off abruptly. 

It snowed all morning, the snow is knee-deep. There 
has been no sun. Night is coming on, and the wind is 
rising higher and higher. The moon is full, and there is 
scarcely a trace of a cloud in the sky; the stars look down 
with a steely stare. White, all white; white, the light of 
the moon and stars; white the mountains, the nude black 
figures of the trees heightening the whiteness; white, the 
huge culm-and-rock banks that usually stand like great 
black Cyclopian giants; white, the lofty roofs of the coal- 
breakers and housetops; white the roads, white the gardens; 
everything white with snow. 

The wind rattles the loose old window-sashes in the Breen 
home, till you wonder that sprigs and putty can hold in the 
panes that seem so eager to hurl themselves out. The 
blast shrieks about the eaves and in the chimney. 

Mary Breen has been very weak for two days, and she is 
weaker to-night. Despite the snow, Brian Munley has 
come this evening. When he and Mrs. Breen enter the 
sick-room, Martha is sitting weeping beside Mary. Both 
girls give him a look of welcome. How beautiful, but 
unearthly-looking is Mary! and how rosy and pretty and 
winsome is Martha! 


126 


BRIDGET, 


“Brian,” Mary speaks, “how good of you to come! 1 
feared that the cold might have kept you away, it is such a 
bitter, frosty night. I have told Martha that I am dying 
and now 1 must say a few words to you. — (Be patient, just 
a minute, mam dear, then I’ll speak with you.) — You have 
loved me Brian.” He boldly takes her diaphanous hand, 
and presses it softly in his rough palm; he is glad that she 
knows of his love. “Brian, when I am gone — and it will 
not be long before I go — you will love again; and I want 
you to love. How sad that you should love poor me, 
for though I am not a nun in garb, I am a nun at heart. 
Yet, Brian, you are a man that any woman could love.” 

When the next evening came Mary Breen’s eyes were 
closed, and her face was sweet to look upon in its calm 
sleep. She had found her work, had faithfully performed 
it; and then, weary and heartsore, had fallen “asleep in 
the Lord.” 

The nuns heard of her peaceful end, and they prayed for 
her in the chapel she had loved. 

“God had special designs in Sister Isabella’s regard,” 
said Mother Eulalia. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


AT DEATH’S DOOR. 

The Sisters and other nurses were glad of Bridget’s 
return to the hospital, for she lightened their labor con- 
siderably, and she was so pleasant that no one ever saw 
her frown. 

Sister Antoninus had to undergo an operation, and her 
duties fell to the lot of Bridget. There was an insane asylum 
adjoining the hospital, and one of Bridget’s new duties 
was to carry meals to the inmates. Many a tear she shed 
that day as she went her rounds. Bridget had more pity 
for the poor creatures than fear of them. 

She was just taking a lunch to the last patient, when she 
met Mother Eulalia. 

“What sort of patient is in this room?” she asked. “Man 
or woman?” 

“A man. His relatives brought him here some time ago. 
He is continually talking about a woman; I dare say, his 
wife.” 

Bridget entered the room and set down the lunch, then 
turned to look at the occupant. A little cry of surprise 
and horror broke from her lips when she saw the pale, 
ghastly face, the hollow cheeks and great burning eyes of 
Robert Burroughs, her sister’s husband. Those eyes! 
She now understood the look she had noticed in them 
years ago. Perhaps he had been partly insane all his life- 
time, and perhaps that was the cause of poor Belle’s hard 
life with him. Perhaps his misfortunes and his love of her 
had driven him completely insane. 

He and Bridget stared at each other for some time; then 
he passed his hand across his brow in a confused wa^. 


128 


BRIDGET, 


He approached her, then drew back. A gust of air blew 
the door shut; the knob was on the outside, there being 
none on the inside; and Bridget realized, with a thrill of 
horror, that she was shut in alone with a maniac — her 
sister’s murderer. 

“Is it she, or is it not?” he asked aloud, in a dull mono- 
tone. “I have thought her here much of late, but I have 
always been mistaken. Is it you in the flesh. Belle, or is it 
your spirit?” 

Bridget shuddered more, as she perceived that he con- 
founded her with her sister. Her fear deepened when she 
saw his fingers working — ^just as they had worked that day 
at Mine Run when he struck Belle to the floor. The sus- 
pense was too great. She beat on the door with her hands 
and screamed twice. Then he had seized her in his sinewy 
arms and was dragging her to the centre of the room. She 
tried to cry out again, but he clapped his hand on her mouth. 

“You are alive; your voice has told me that” he said; 
“but you shall die, die as I died long ago. I am here 
detained in this hell, because I loved you better than my 
soul.” 

His strong fingers closed on her throat. The barred 
windows, the walls, the bed, were swimming in a sea of 
blood before her eyes; the floor and ceiling came together, 
but forever were those awful eyes staring into hers. She 
heard a crash that seemed away off in another world, and 
that was all. 

Mother Eulalia had heard Bridget’s scream, and she 
called two of the doctors at once. 

They threw open the door just in time to find her un- 
conscious in the madman’s hands. 

“You may take her out now,” he said, “she is dead, and 
I need be jealous no more. No other man will ever love 
her, nor she him.” 

Bridget quickly revived, and was not much the worse for 
the encounter. 

“That’s what it is to be so pretty, Bridget,” twitted 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


129 


Katie Finley, who was now a nurse at the hospital. ‘T 
have gone into his room a dozen times, and he never paid 
any attention to me| yet as soon as you trip in, he thinks 
you are his lovely wife of whom he talks so much, and 
proceeds to choke you. But,” with a shudder, ^‘it really 
was an awful experience, and one not to be forgotten. My 
nerves would be unstrung for life if ever I got into his 
clutches. 

“My nerves aren’t of the best anyway,” she continued, 
“and I had such a shock to-day. Two men are dead in 
my ward. Each shot the other in some den of vice in the 
city. The one, Norman Stroud, died of his wound; the 
other, Wayne Carter, we might have saved, but his system 
was poisoned with alcohol. 

“But I’ll change the subject. You don’t seem quite 
like yourself, Bridget. Your experience with that insane 
patient has not yet lost its effect. 

“I’m going to be married. To whom? Why, to Albert 
Brady, of course. He and I were beaus in the long ago, 
but he drank, and I would have nothing to do with him, 
though my heart almost broke. Dear Sister Isabella was 
his niece, and she reformed him. He got into that trouble, 
you remember, with his former employer, Norton Renshaw. 
Mr. Renshaw said hard things to Albert, who was in his 
cups at the time, and Albert gave him a blow that nearly 
ended his life. But Albert has left his crooked ways, and 
at last, dear, he and I shall be happy.” 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


A COAL REGION PROPOSAL. 

It was a chilly evening. The roads were frozen hard 
and lumpy, and were unpleasant to walk upon. Martha 
Breen drew her muffler about her throat. She was not 
alone; a tall, noble-looking young man walked beside her. 
They were returning from the close of the Forty Hours^ 
Devotion. Martha was almost the last to leave the church, 
and Brian Munley had waited in the vestibule till he saw 
her genuflect in the aisle. He was an honest, simple fellow, 
was Brian, and he has long since grown to love Martha, 
yet somehow he could never broach the subject of matrimony 
to her. She seemed more softened to-night, and never was 
she dearer to him. He would speak. 

“Mattie, I guess you have been down-hearted since the 
death of your sister Mary.” 

“Yes, Brian. Home without her ain’t like it was,” 
she replied sadly. 

“You will not always feel it so bad, Mattie; in time, the 
sorrow will wear off some. Perhaps, when another love 
comes, then — ” 

His voice died off very faintly. Martha was silent. 
He waited for her to speak, then recommenced himself. 

“The sermon to-night was fine, wasn’t it, Mattie?” 

“Yes; I enjoyed it; sich a good sermon.” 

“On the marriage state and its different duties. It set 
me thinking, Mattie, and thoughts came to me, thoughts 
of you.” 

He was laboring in the quicksands of embarrassment 
and Martha generously threw out a plank to him. 

“Of me, Brian, bow kindl Wbat they?” 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


131 

Her voice was encouraging; he screwed his courage to 
the sticking place. 

thought of you and me in that marriage state, keeping 
the duties together; you helping me, and me helping you. 
Mattie, you know what I mean.” 

He clasped her little hand in his rough palm, his thick 
fingers closed over hers, he bent closer to her and stopped 
for an answer. 

*‘Know what you mean, Brian, dear? I — I — ” 

Martha was very much of a woman after all. Long years 
she had waited and longed and prayed for this moment, 
yet when it came, the happiness robbed her of her usual 
flow of speech. 

His arm stole around her waist and drawing her very 
close, he whispered boldly in her ear. None but Brian 
heard the whispered answer. He looked radiantly happy 
as there in the middle of the road she held up her face 
for his first kiss. 

“I knew, Mattie you wouldn’t refuse me, but when may 
the day be?” 

‘‘Whenever you say, Brian. It won’t take me many 
days to get the few clothes I shall need.” 

She was feverish with impatience for the wedding day, 
and so was he. Down the road they went, arm in arm, 
their hearts singing the sweet old song that will never die 
while the world lasts. Down the road, she happy in his 
protection, he happy in her dependence — just as, side by 
side, they passed down life’s road to the end. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


BACK TO THE COAL REGIONS. 

It was a cold, blustry January day. Rain and sleet and 
snow and wind joined hands to make life unbearable to 
pedestrians. The pavements were treacherous, the steps 
of houses and offices and trolley cars were treacherous. 
Bones were broken that day, noses and toes and ears and 
faces were frost-bitten, heads suffered by coming in abrupt 
contact with the sidewalks. Women veiled themselves, 
but vainly; their noses would redden, and their cheeks 
and lips chap. Even the beards and mustaches of the men 
failed to save the lips of their owners from the biting cold. 

In her cosy room in the hospital sat Bridget Purcel, with 
a newspaper and a badly- written letter on her knees. There 
were traces of fresh tears about her cheeks and eyes. 

“Poor Jack Hayes!” she murmured aloud. “After all, 
there was much good in him. How he loved her, my 
poor Belle!” 

Bridget had seen him at Belle’s funeral, a sad-eyed, old- 
young man; debility brought on by dissipation. After 
the funeral, she had seen him stupified with drink on the 
steps of a tavern. 

Jack Hayes and her brother Andy had never been 
friends, had in fact been open enemies. An accident 
occured at the mines where the two foes were employed. 
All hope of escape for Andy had been given up, when Jack 
went to his rescue, saved him and lost his own life. 

“I can’t act no hypercrite,” said Jack bluntly, when 
crushed, and mangled he was taken home in the ambulance 
with Andy. “Don’t think I saved you for all the love I 
beared you. Your ’re her brother, and that is why I’m 
like I am now.” 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


133 


Jack’s old mother had no small consolation; her way- 
ward son, the black sheep of the family, received the ad- 
ministrations of a priest before God ended his life, and he 
died sincerely sorry for all his past excesses. The badly 
written letter was from Andy. He gave in his crude way 
an account of the accident. 

In the paper there was one item that attracted Bridget. 
Hugh Nolan was partner to a well-known business man 
of a large town some seven miles from Mine Run and was 
very successful. Bridget sighed. Very likely he would 
soon marry, now that he was so well on the road to fortune. 
Katie Finley tapped at the door and stuck in her head. 

“Well, I never!” she exclaimed. “You can’t guess 
who has just come. Dear old Mrs. Nolan and her son 
Hugh all the way from Mine Run.” 

“On a visit?” asked Bridget, starting to her feet. 

“No, she has to undergo an operation for a tumor. But 
come down; she wants to see you.” 

Bridget gave a quick glance at her mirror before she left 
the room. Her heart beat very fast when she opened the 
door of Mrs. Nolan’s apartment, and met Hugh Nolan’s 
big blue eyes. 

“Arrah, God be praised!” cried the old woman, spring- 
ing into Bridget’s arms. “You ain’t a bit diff’rent then 
you were when you first come down here. The city don’t 
change you like it does many of the others.” 

Bridget gave Hugh her hand. He looked very handsome 
that day; she thought she had never seen him look hand- 
somer. The operation seemed to worry Mrs. Nolan, 
though Hugh assured her that it would be all right, for the 
doctors had told him so. 

“ Oh, murder! ” said she to Bridget next morning. “ What 
would I do if I died and left Hughie behind me, and him 
with no wife at all!” 

“But you wonH die,” replied the embarrassed girl. 

Hugh was out walking in the park. He passed along by 
a grove in which there was now not a leaf, and where the 


134 


BRIDGET, 


spotless snow lay deep. He never thought of the tragedy 
that had been enacted there. The snow covered the spot 
where a woman’s blood had nourished the grass. His 
thoughts were of Bridget. 

“So she is not married yet! Perhaps I may hope. I 
thought she would marry wealth; I am sure she might 
have done so. Perhaps — ” 

He turned back to the hospital, for the day was very 
cold. He found Bridget with his mother. 

The operation was quite successful; and the day soon 
came when Hugh and his mother were to return to Mine 
Run. 

“But I know I won’t live much longer anyhow,” said 
Mrs. Nolan to Bridget. “Since the knife didn’t fix me, old 
age will mighty quick. But I’m satisfied, for Hugh will 
soon be married; I’ll see to that.” 

Bridget turned quickly to the window. Her heart pained 
her. She thought that now at last she understood. Hugh 
was engaged, and his mother wanted him to marry at an 
earlier date. It was of no use for her to try to stem that 
torrent of tears; it would come forth. Old Mrs. Nolan 
winked wickedly at Hugh. 

“What ails you, child?” she asked kindly. 

“ O, Mrs. Nolan, if I could only go back with you to Mine 
Run. I am so lonely, so lonely; I was never so lonely 
before.” 

Then Mrs. Nolan, strange to relate, went out of the room 
and shut the door. Bridget glanced up quickly, and met 
Hugh’s eyes. Did she see clearly, or were her tears deceiv- 
ing her? Such an expression on his face! 

“Bridget!” His strong voice was rich with love and 
yearning. “Will you return to Mine Run with me? I 
have a home for you at last ; not grand, as you deserve, but 
a home. Say you will come, Bridget.” 

He took her in his arms, and she did not resist. He 
held her there, then kissed her lips. 

“O Hugh, Hugh! I have felt so much alone in the 
world. I need some one to love and protect me; all women 


OR WHAT’S IN A NAME? 


135 

do.” She was like a frank, innocent child speaking to its 
father. 

“I love and will protect you, Bridget.” 

It was odd that Mrs. Nolan returned just then. , Katie 
Finley in the corridor felt certain that she had seen the 
good old soul put her ear, then her eye to the key-hole. 

“Well, wonders will never cease!” exclaimed she. “To 
think as you two young geese didn’t come together afore 
now, but each go their own way, screeching after the other.” 

“It’s Hugh’s fault,” said Bridget, with a blush, “and I 
am half angry at him. I would have married him, and never 
left Mine Run, if he had said only the word.” 

“But, dear,” and his arm stole round her, “I did not want 
you to marry a miner.” 

“No,” she scolded — much to Mrs. Nolan’s delight, 
“you let me go wandering like a poor forlorn goose, as 
your mother said, when you ought to have been making me 
happy. Life in a hovel with you, dear,” and she looked 
lovingly into the eyes that were gazing into hers, “would be 
heaven on earth.” 

“Sure, the divil himself won’t be able to kill me after 
this,” said old Mrs. Nolan, jumping between the lovers 
and putting an arm about the neck of each. “I’ll take a 
lease of life for thirty years more. Pack up, the two of you, 
me young goose and gander; I want to be at Mine Run 
to-morrow, and you have got to come with me. Backjo 
the coal regions with you now, Biddy Nolan, and no back 
talk from you. You ain’t your own boss no more; I’m 
your mam now.” 

Then Bridget kissed her. 


End. 



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